Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York continued her feud with Twitter’s Elon Musk Thursday suggesting that Musk has targeted her account as payback for her recent flurry of contentious tweets about him.
“I was at a community event in the Bronx in Coop City, and when I get home, I see a text from my team saying ‘Hey let us know if you need any help with this Elon stuff,’” she said in between bites of food in an Instagram story, according to The Wrap.
“And I was like ‘What?’ So I pull up my Twitter app, and it’s like, gone. Like when you pull up your mentions and stuff, it’s just like literally it’s a blank screen. Totally gone. And I was like ‘Hmm, that’s weird.’ So it turns out we got under a certain little billionaire’s skin,” she said.
.@AOC accuses @elonmusk of censoring her on twitter. pic.twitter.com/yGEAckNEK5
— John Gage (@johnrobertgage) November 3, 2022
Ocasio-Cortez then defended the pricey sweatshirts she sells in her campaign store, which Musk had criticized during their past two days of Twittersphere zingers at each other.
“So then, he decides to like tweet a screenshot of our campaign store because our sweatshirts are like $50 to $58 as some kind of like ‘Gotcha’ that like other people pay money for goods, emphasis on ‘real goods’ in the world,” Ocasio-Cortez continued.
“But here’s the thing is that unlike Elon Musk, all the workers with our campaign, our campaign is unionized. We pay full health care. We have other benefits like childcare stipends,” she said.
Yesterday, Ocasio-Cortez offered a slightly different explanation while defending the high cost of showing support for her.
“Not to mention all proceeds go to community organizing like our Homework Helpers program which gives private tutoring to kids who’ve needed learning support since COVID,” she tweeted.
Is Elon doing a great job as new owner of Twitter?
Yes: 100% (2 Votes)
No: 0% (0 Votes)
The claim was investigated by Fox Business.
“The claim appears to be at odds with her own online merchandise store which explicitly states that ‘purchases are campaign contributions,’” the site reported in its fact-checking expedition.
“Campaign finance data since July likewise make no mention of donations to charity organizations,” Fox Business added for good measure.
On Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez attacked Musk for hiking the cost of Twitter’s subscription service, Twitter Blue, from $5 to $8 per month and requiring it for verification.
Your feedback is appreciated, now pay $8
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2022
“Your feedback is appreciated, now pay $8,” Musk replied.
The two have sparred off and on since April when Musk fired off a reply to a Cortez tweet.
Stop hitting on me, I’m really shy ☺️
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 29, 2022
“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,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote.
“Stop hitting on me, I’m really shy,” Musk replied.
