- Elon Musk and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had an awkward Twitter interaction on Friday.
- She slammed a “billionaire with an ego problem” who “controls a massive communication platform.”
- Musk responded, but Ocasio-Cortez said she was talking about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
In a cringe-worthy social media exchange Friday, billionaire Elon Musk told Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez to “stop flirting” with him after the lawmaker slammed an unnamed “billionaire with an ego problem.”
“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 to dinner and made him feel special,” the New York progressive wrote in a tweet on Friday.
Musk, whose buyout offer was accepted by Twitter earlier this week, then responded: “Stop hitting on me, I’m really shy.”
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 29, 2022
Ocasio-Cortez quipped back in a now-deleted tweet that she was referring to a different billionaire, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
“I was talking about Zuckerberg but ok,” the New York lawmaker replied.
Musk, nor Zukerberg, replied to the now-deleted tweet.
Ocasio-Cortez’s initial tweet namedropping Fox News host Carlson and venture capitalist Thiel may have been referring to a 2019 Politico report, which claimed that Zuckerberg hosted a confidential dinner with Carlson. Thiel, Zuckerberg’s longtime mentor, was one of Facebook’s early investors.
Meanwhile, Theil and Musk’s trajectories have run parallel since the founding of Paypal in 2000, though they appear to have a love-hate relationship. And this week, Carlson said he would be returning to Twitter after Musk’s takeover.
Both social media companies have been wrapped up in an ongoing culture war over free speech. Twitter, for example, has faced criticism for allowing accounts that amplify misinformation. Many believe Musk, a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist,” may reinstate accounts previously banned for violating the platform’s hate speech or misinformation policy. Facebook has faced criticism in the past for allowing the spread of far-right misinformation.