Elon Musk claims Twitter temporarily locked his account after fearing his bizarre posts were the work of hackers.

The billionaire, who is known for his controversial rants online, wrote: “Twitter thought I got hacked & locked my account haha.”

Hours earlier, the Tesla and SpaceX chief declared his love for anime. Another post, written by Musk just minutes later said he owned a wolverine that he described as “chibi”, which is Japanese slang for short.

He also shared an anime image with the text: "Wanna buy some Bitcoin?"

It is not known exactly which tweets caused Twitter to temporarily block Musk, however the social network has been stepping up its crackdown on what it believes to be “spam accounts” in recent months.

Twitter said it will lock an account if it detects sudden changes before contacting the owner to confirm they still have control over it. These changes could include tweeting a large number of unsolicited replies to other people’s tweets, tweeting misleading links, or if a large number of people block the account after mentioning it.

Elon Musk is no stranger to controversy on the site. In September, he was forced to step down as Tesla chairman and pay a £15m fine after a tweet claiming he wanted had funding to take Tesla private at $420 per share.