Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elon Musk Associated Press / Business Insider
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Elon Musk and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke awkwardly on Twitter on Friday.
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She spotted a “billionaire with an ego problem” who “controls a massive communication platform.”
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Musk responded, but Ocasio-Cortez said he was talking about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
In an incredible social media exchange on Friday, billionaire Elon Musk told Alexandria’s Ocasio Cortes to “stop flirting” with him after the MP attacked an unnamed “billionaire with an ego problem”.
“I’m tired of having to collectively stress about what an explosion of hate crimes is going on, because a billionaire with an ego problem unilaterally controls a massive communication platform and distorts it because Tucker Carlson or Peter Teale took him to dinner and made it feel special, “the New York Progressive tweeted on Friday.
Musk, whose buyout offer was accepted by Twitter earlier this week, then replied: “Stop hitting me, I’m really shy.”
Ocasio-Cortez joked in a deleted tweet that he meant a different billionaire, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
“I was talking about Zuckerberg, but good,” the New York MP replied.
Neither Musk nor Zuckerberg responded to the already deleted tweet.
Ocasio-Cortez’s initial tweet, which removed the names of Fox News presenter Carlson and venture capitalist Thiel, could cite a 2019 Politico report claiming that Zuckerberg hosted a confidential dinner with Carlson. Teal, Zuckerberg’s longtime mentor, was one of Facebook’s first investors.
Meanwhile, Tale and Musk’s trajectories have run parallel to the founding of Paypal in 2000, although they seem to have a love-hate relationship. And this week, Carlson said he would return to Twitter after taking on Musk.
Both social media companies are embroiled in an ongoing cultural war for freedom of speech. Twitter, for example, has been criticized for allowing accounts that increase misinformation. Many believe that Musk, a self-proclaimed “absolutist of free speech,” can restore accounts that were previously banned for violating the platform’s hate speech or disinformation policies. Facebook has faced criticism in the past for allowing far-right misinformation to spread.
Read the original article in Business Insider
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