Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez And Elon Musk Have Been Locked In A Brutal Feud

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has never shied away from publicly slamming Elon Musk. After the Tesla CEO purchased X, formerly known as Twitter, she criticized his decision to charge people $8 monthly in order to be verified. "One guy's business plan for a $44 billion over-leveraged purchase is apparently to run around and individually ask people for $8," the outspoken congresswoman proclaimed at the time, adding, "Remember that next time you question yourself or your qualifications." In another tweet, AOC made fun of Musk's bizarre marketing tactics, which apparently sought to convey that people were buying free speech for $8. The quip elicited a response from the billionaire himself, who wrote, "Your feedback is appreciated, now pay $8." 

Later, Musk also shared a screenshot from her website that showed she was selling her merchandise for $58. Of course, Ocasio-Cortez wasn't about to let the dig slide, and she quickly clarified that her high prices went towards fairly compensating the union workers who manufactured her products. Further, the elected official noted that her employees didn't have to endure racism at their workplace, subtly shading an ongoing Tesla lawsuit surrounding that very issue.

Musk and AOC once again butted heads in July 2023 after the PayPal co-founder responded to a parody account of the Democratic politician who tweeted that they were crushing on him. Although Musk only responded with a fire emoji, the initial message has still earned a whopping 25 million views at the time of writing. Needless to say, Ocasio-Cortez was less than pleased, and she called Musk out for interacting and increasing the account's reach.

In 2023, Ashley St. Clair, the rumored mother of Elon Musk's 13th child, questioned the figures that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had put forth in a video discussing immigration in the U.S., on X. The PayPal co-founder obviously couldn't let an opportunity to take a dig at his nemesis slide, and he chose to question the congresswoman's overall intelligence too. However, Ocasio-Cortez, the woman who once made congressional history, wasn't about to let anyone undermine her, clarifying, "I wasn't born rich and became the youngest woman in American history to be elected to Congress." 

The staunch Democrat continued, "Then I investigated Cohen, authored the largest FEMA funeral assistance program in history and led creation of a US Climate Corps to create tens of thousands of new jobs." Naturally, that wasn't enough to change Musk's mind, and he snarked in response, "I take it back — you're obviously a genius." Meanwhile, in a separate tweet, the tech billionaire jokingly offered AOC a pat on the back for her supposedly faux achievements while writing that an agency like FEMA should put its efforts and finances towards saving lives instead of funeral assistance. 

In addition to questioning how smart she is, Musk also wondered whether the politician was being truthful about her experiences during the January 6th Capitol riots. In October 2024, an X user posited that they had a hard time believing Ocasio-Cortez's claim that she feared she was going to be sexually assaulted and killed during the attack because she supposedly wasn't physically present at the building at the time. And Musk chimed in to "joke," "AOC was like murdered like 17 times at least."

In February 2025, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted a video on Instagram criticizing Donald Trump for letting Elon Musk have so much influence over the government despite not having any qualifications or being democratically elected. "This dude is not smart, and the danger in the lack of intelligence and the lack of expertise that Elon has, I mean, this guy is one of the most morally vacant, but also just least knowledgeable about these systems that we know of," the congresswoman pointed out. She also admitted to being baffled by Musk's decision to select 19-year-olds for important positions in the Treasury Department.

Further, AOC asserted that the SpaceX founder was desperately trying to convince the president to dismiss the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) simply because he wanted to weasel his way out of fines imposed on his own aviation company. Later in the month, the politician also spoke at a protest against the tech billionaire's continuing government involvement. She stated that Musk wouldn't help with government efficiency in his role as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and would only make decisions that secured his financial interests. 

To make her case, the congresswoman pointed out Musk's sinister intentions of reducing Medicaid funding by $1 trillion, as reported by the New York Times. Ocasio-Cortez also compared Musk to a king, labeled him an oligarch, and urged protestors to be brave in questioning his authority in the government and to continue to build pressure on him in every way possible. Musk only offered a short response to the impassioned speech on X: "But you already sold out (at a discount)."

While delivering a speech at Donald Trump's inauguration rally, in January 2025, Elon Musk made a gesture that looked an awful lot like a Nazi salute. While many social media commentators were understandably upset and infuriated by the move, others jumped to defend the controversial businessman's gesture. His supporters reasoned that he was physically pointing to his heart and giving it to the audience to express his gratitude. In fact, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a non-governmental organization that fights antisemitism, was notably among the defenders. 

After they tweeted that they didn't see the gesture as a Nazi salute, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez argued on X, "Just to be clear, you are defending a Heil Hitler salute that was performed and repeated for emphasis and clarity." The outspoken congresswoman even warned that the ADL had stripped themselves of all credibility with their divisive position. In response, Musk wrote, "AOC has reached Stage 5 TDS — fully unhinged." 

Shortly afterwards, Republican House Representative Mark Collins shared a video of Rev Mariann Edgar Budde urging Donald Trump to be compassionate with immigrants and the LGBTQIA+ community upon returning to office. It's safe to say that Collins didn't take the bishop's words to heart because he raged that she should be deported for her impassioned words. In response, AOC asked, "What about the guy who did a Nazi salute behind the presidential seal?" Musk responded again with a video of the Democratic representative gesturing with her arm while delivering a speech, and simply wrote, "This you?"

In February 2025, Kyle Griffin, executive producer of MSNBC's "The Weekend," tweeted that some security officials in the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) were "on leave" after barring Elon Musk "from accessing classified material." Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was evidently displeased by this, so she took to X to warn that the situation was rapidly getting out of hand, adding, "Having an unelected billionaire, with his own foreign debts and motives, raiding US classified information is a grave threat to national security." Additionally, she felt that Republicans and Democrats alike should recognize the glaring problems with Musk's addition to the government. 

In another tweet, AOC wrote that if the head of the Department Of Government Efficiency truly wanted to reduce wasteful government spending, he should look no further than his own defense contracts with the Pentagon. Even Musk himself couldn't seem to argue with this fact, leaving him with no choice but to sneer, "Do you actually write these or am I replying to your intern?" Meanwhile, in January 2025, an X user posted a video of Donald Trump claiming that they couldn't rule out the possibility that the past Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) policy hiring had led to the mid-air collision of a passenger aircraft and military plane. 

AOC voiced her disagreement and informed her millions of followers that Trump and Musk were to blame for the accident since they had "gutted" the Aviation Safety Committee just a week prior, and the already understaffed air traffic controllers didn't have adequate time to adjust to the changes.

In July 2023, X's official safety account shared a tweet proudly detailing how they had curbed hate speech on the platform. In response, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote, "I have never experienced more harassment on this platform than I do now. People now pay to give their harassment more visibility." She elaborated, "The de-verification of journalists, civic orgs, and figures has made it impossible to follow conversations. I wish it could be usable again." However, Elon Musk obviously didn't empathize with her struggles and essentially called her a bit of a snowflake while using ye olde English (as he's wont to do). 

When the congresswoman expressed similar concerns about the changes in the new X cycle following Musk's 2022 takeover, the tech billionaire bizarrely responded, "Stop hitting on me, I'm really shy." Although most of their spats have been limited to verbal exchanges on the social media site, there was a time when Musk supposedly took things further. Shortly after AOC criticized him for making people pay to get verified on the platform, also in 2022, she shared a screenshot revealing that her Verified notifications tab had been blank since her initial tweet. 

The politician therefore wondered how the platform's owner could try to sell it as the go-to for free speech while interfering with her access. Musk responded to a video of her making the same claim, posted by Benny Johnson, joking, "What can I say? It was a naked abuse of power." At the end of the day, though, Musk isn't the only one in Donald Trump's inner circle whom Ocasio-Cortez dislikes since she has also been locked in a brutal feud with Marjorie Taylor Greene.