Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elon MuskAssociated Press/Business Insider
Elon Musk and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had an awkward Twitter interaction on Friday.
She slammed a “ego-struggling billionaire” who “controls a huge communications platform.”
Musk responded, but Ocasio-Cortez said she was speaking of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
In a chilling social media exchange on Friday, billionaire Elon Musk urged Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez to “stop flirting with him” after lawmakers slammed an unnamed “billionaire with an ego problem.”
“I’m tired of emphasizing collectively what a hate crime explosion is happening because a billionaire with an ego problem unilaterally controls a huge communications platform and distorts it because Tucker Carlson or Peter Thiel took him out to dinner and made him feel to be special,” the New York Progressive wrote in a tweet on Friday.
Musk, whose takeover bid was accepted by Twitter earlier this week, so answered: “Stop teasing me, I’m really shy.”
Ocasio-Cortez quipped back in a now-deleted tweet that she was referring to another billionaire, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
“I was talking about Zuckerberg, but ok,” the New York lawmaker replied.
Neither Musk nor Zukerberg responded to the now-deleted tweet.
Ocasio-Cortez’s first tweet, which named Fox News host Carlson and venture capitalist Thiel, may have referenced a 2019 Politico report that claimed Zuckerberg hosted a confidential dinner with Carlson. Thiel, Zuckerberg’s longtime mentor, was one of Facebook’s early investors.
Meanwhile, Theil and Musk’s paths have paralleled each other since Paypal’s founding in 2000, though they seem to have a love-hate relationship. And this week, Carlson said he would return to Twitter following Musk’s takeover.
Both social media companies are locked in an ongoing culture war over freedom of expression. Twitter, for example, has been criticized for allowing accounts that reinforce misinformation. Many believe Musk, a self-proclaimed “Freedom of speech absolutist,” can re-enable accounts previously banned for violating the platform’s hate speech or misinformation policies. Facebook has been criticized in the past for allowing far-right misinformation to spread.
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