Elon Musk dares US Congresswoman to run Twitter poll asking who people 'trust less'

Tesla Inc. owner Elon Musk, who is known for his triggering cryptic tweets, on Wednesday, threw an open challenge to US Congresswomen Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (AOC). In a series of Twitter posts, the multi-billionaire demanded the former US Representative for New York's 14 congressional districts to run a poll on the microblogging platform asking who people 'trust less' between a 'politician' and a 'billionaire.' Musk's bitter jibe at AOC came after her public announcement that she was itching to ditch her Tesla car.

Musk and AOC engage in verbal tiff on Twitter

For the unversed, the banter between AOC and Musk date back to late April, when the latter asked the US representative to "stop hitting on him." The riff-raff began with a now-deleted tweet by AOC, which said: " Tired of having to collectively stress about what explosion of hate crimes is happening because some billionaire with ego problem unilaterally controls a massive communication platform and skews it because Ticket Carlson or Peter Thiel took him to dinner and made him special" in an apparent jibe at Elon Musk's Twitter buyout feud. To his Musk cheekily responded, "Stop hitting on me, I am really shy" with a blushing emoji. Offended by the remark, AOC hit back saying: "I was talking about (Mark) Zuckerberg but ok. That's some way to get two billionaires in one tweet."

Reverting to the Congresswoman's tweet, Musk on Wednesday clapped back saying that "Use of the word “billionaire” as a pejorative is morally wrong & dumb...if the reason for it is building products that make millions of people happy." However, AOC deleted the "epic" tweet before the spat expanded, explaining that she "is trying to avoid giving people with massive ego complexes like this the attention and QTs/replies they crave and are seeking" and attached a winking-face emoji to it.

US representative itching to give up her Tesla after spat with Musk

As Musk and AOC continue to claw at each other, the latter in an interview on Wednesday said that she would "love to" ditch her Tesla car. Cortez is among the 10 US Congress members who own a Tesla car which she bought last year to help her travel from New York to Washington during election campaigns "on like one, or one-and-a-half charges." When asked if her decision was resultant of the feud with Musk, AOC stressed that she "couldn't care less" about Musk and his apparent war against "wokeism."

(Image: AP/Unsplash)