(KRON) — A Twitter row between Democrat New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elon Musk that erupted Wednesday is ongoing with AOC now alleging her app may have stopped working as a result of her getting under the billionaire’s skin.
“Why should people pay $8 just for their app to get bricked when they say something you don’t like?” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, accompanied by a picture that showed a blank feed for Verified posts. “This is what my app has looked like ever since my tweet upset you yesterday. What’s good? Doesn’t seem very free speechy to me.”
Billionaire Tesla CEO and newly-minted “Chief Twit,” Elon Musk has been on something of a Twitter tear of late. Among other things, he’s duked it out verbally with author Stephen King over a proposed plan to charge users $8 a month for blue verification check marks, launched tentative plans to bring back Vine based on a Twitter poll and retweeted then deleted an anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theory related to the attack on Paul Pelosi.
On Wednesday, he issued a terse response to New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after AOC seemingly attempted to poke a pin in the idea that charging people for verification represented “free speech.”
“Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that ‘free speech’ is actually a $8/mo subscription plan,” the congresswoman tweeted.
“Your feedback is appreciated, now pay $8,” Musk tweeted in response.
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AOC does not appear to have responded to Musk, but the billionaire later tweeted a screengrab of what looked like a periwinkle colored sweatshirt for sale on the congresswoman’s website, circling the price tag of $58.
AOC rebutted Musk’s tweet, quote-tweeting the Tesla CEO and saying, “My workers are union, make a living wage, have full healthcare, and aren’t subject to racist treatment in their workplaces. Items are made in USA.”
“Team AOC honors and respects working people. You should try it sometime instead of union-busting,” the tweet concluded.
The congresswoman seemed to be referencing allegations made against Tesla in the past about the mistreatment of Black employees.
Wednesday was not the first time the billionaire engaged in a Twitter scrap with the New York progressive representative. Last spring, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that she was “Tired of having to collectively stress about what explosion of hate crimes is happening bc some billionaire with an ego problem unilaterally controls a massive communication platform and skews it because Tucker Carlson or Peter Thiel took him out to dinner and made him feel special.”
“Stop hitting on me, I’m really shy,” Musk tweeted in response.
Ocasio-Cortez then appeared to tweet back, responding, “I was talking about Zuckerberg but ok,” before apparently deleting her reply, although not before it had been screenshot by some users.
