Elon Musk has claimed Twitter locked his account fearing it had been hacked following several bizarre posts about anime.

The Tesla and Space X chief appeared to profess his love for the Japanese style of animation in a tweet sent on Monday.

A second post, apparently written by Musk around 40 minutes later, stated he owned a wolverine, describing it as “chibi” – a Japanese slang term for short or small.

Hours later, Musk tweeted again, claiming Twitter had locked his account, seemingly in the belief the unusual messages meant the billionaire's profile had been hacked.

“Twitter thought I got hacked & locked my account haha,” he wrote.

The entrepreneur, worth an estimated $19.5bn (£15bn), has built a reputation for his unpredictable behaviour on the social media platform in recent months.

In September, Musk was forced to step down as Tesla chairman and personally pay $20m (£15m) to settle a US government lawsuit alleging he misled investors in tweets about a potential buyout of the firm.

The billionaire tweeted in August he was considering taking the company private once shares reached $420 (£323), causing share prices to spike, before he subsequently backtracked.

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Musk is also currently being sued by British cave diver Vern Unsworth, who he branded a “pedo guy” on Twitter after the rescue worker criticised his plan to save 12 Thai boys trapped underground using a miniature submarine.