Twitter's soon-to-be owner Elon Musk has accused US politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of flirting with him over the social media platform.
The Tesla CEO recently had a $44 billion bid for the social media giant accepted, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of users quitting the site and led to a noticeable drop in the follower count of left-leaning politicians and celebrities including Barack Obama, Jeremy Corbyn and Taylor Swift.
A number of right-wing figures such as Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, Texas senator Ted Cruz and UK prime minister Boris Johnson have reportedly seen an increase in followers as new users sign up.
Musk has said he wants to promote free speech on the site and make Twitter 'politically neutral', which he said 'means upsetting the far right and the far left equally'.
According to the Daily Mail, AOC had earlier clashed with Musk over his sharing of a meme claiming the 'far left' had taken over the Democratic party.
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She later wrote: "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."
Musk is not named in the tweet, though the billionaire clearly thought it was about him as he fired back: "Stop hitting on me, I'm really shy", accompanied by a blushing emoji.
AOC responded: "I was talking about Zuckerberg but ok", but deleted the tweet shortly afterwards, though not before plenty of people on the site were able to see it and respond to her comeback.
A number of right-wing figures in the US piled onto the exchange, praising Musk for 'trolling' AOC and joking she was attracted to him.
It will be about six months before Musk actually takes control of Twitter. Although, his purchase of the social media site has provoked a mixed reaction.
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The Independent reports that permanently suspended accounts could be restored under potential new rules to be introduced by Musk which might see temporary bans instead.
Over 150,000 accounts are currently suspended, including those of former US president Donald Trump, ex KKK leader David Duke and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
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Topics: Elon Musk, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Twitter
Joe Harker