Elon Musk's response to a tweet suggesting he has "sexual chemistry" with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) "is an insult to AOC."
The Tesla CEO replied to the tweet of a heavily edited video of him and the Congresswoman that made it look like they were flirting.
He used the "love heart hands" emoji in response to the video that was captioned, "Elon Musk and AOC finally worked out their differences. The chemistry these two have is crazy."
Musk's response "may have been sexist" but there was "no doubt he thinks he's being smart or ironic," according to Dr Finn Mackay, a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of the West of England.
"But the very idea that AOC would be attracted to him is an insult to AOC," Mackay added.
The lecturer added the entire Twitter thread was problematic because it "indulges in retrograde playground gender-politics" because it suggests when two people from different genders also have "opposing differences of politics and ethics" they must be secretly attracted to each other.
"Or, more often, as the story goes, that the woman probably desires the man and will be seduced by his authority," Mackay explained.
"This narrative minimizes women's intelligence, autonomy and independence. It revisits ancient stereotypes portraying women as in need of control by men, and unconsciously desiring of such control."
Mackay added: "Children are socialized into this ideology that heterosexuality is based on boys chasing and teasing girls that they actually are attracted to, and thus, that girls should be flattered by negative attention from boys because it means that they like them. These are dangerous myths."
🫶
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 23, 2022
It is not the first time Musk has sexualized Ocasio-Cortez, who has been his vocal critic since he bought Twitter for $44 billion last month.
When his plans to buy the social media website were revealed in April, Ocasio-Cortez took a jab at him for buying the "massive communication platform."
"Tired of having to collectively stress about what explosion of hate crimes is happening because 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 tweeted.
The billionaire responded by teasing her and adding a blushing emoji: "Stop hitting on me, I'm really shy."
Ocasio-Cortez responded to Musk, saying, "I was talking about Zuckerberg but ok," but has since deleted the tweet, according to ProPublica.
Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz got involved in their exchange by retweeting it and added several "fire" emojis.
The Congresswoman once again lashed out at Musk for promising "free speech" on Twitter while offering an $8 per month "blue check" plan.
"Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that 'free speech' is actually a $8/mo subscription plan," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted earlier this month.
Musk replied, "Your feedback is appreciated, now pay $8." He then pinned the tweet to the top of his Twitter profile.
He revealed this week that he planned to put the rollout of the Blue Verified subscription on hold after a disastrous response and number of parody accounts had been created with it.
"Holding off relaunch of Blue Verified until there is high confidence of stopping impersonation. Will probably use different color check for organizations than individuals," Musk tweeted on Tuesday.
Newsweek has reached out to Musk and Ocasio-Cortez's press teams for comment.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Shannon Power is a Greek-Australian reporter, but now calls London home. They have worked as across three continents in print, ... Read more
