- AOC says she's assessing next steps after Elon Musk promoted a parody account, impersonating her.
- Musk responded with a fire emoji when the fake account tweeted that she had a crush on him.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she's assessing next steps after Twitter owner Elon Musk promoted a parody account that has been impersonating her.
Musk responded with a fire emoji on Monday to a tweet from the verified parody account, @AOCpress, saying, "This might be the wine talking, but I've got a crush on @elonmusk".
The New York Democrat blamed Musk on Tuesday for boosting the visibility of @AOCpress, and warned her 13.4 million followers "be careful of what you see." Her real account is @AOC.
"FYI there's a fake account on here impersonating me and going viral," she tweeted. "The Twitter CEO has engaged it, boosting visibility. It is releasing false policy statements and gaining spread. I am assessing with my team how to move forward. In the meantime, be careful of what you see."
—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Press Release (parody) (@AOCpress) May 29, 2023
Ocasio-Cortez appears to be referring to Musk, though Linda Yaccarino became the CEO of Twitter this month.
The parody account responded by copying and pasting the tweet and retweeting Ocasio-Cortez and writing, "I can't believe someone would do that to us." The account also wrote, "Parody should be illegal," and "If @elonmusk wants to have a chance with me, he'll immediately ban the parody account of me.
"This is like literally not funny."
A spokesperson for Ocasio-Cortez declined to comment when asked whether she's considering leaving Twitter.
The @AOCpress parody account, which is verified and gaining followers, has been around since 2018 and has a pinned tweet that says, "Printing money is the only way out of inflation."
Ocasio-Cortez has feuded with Musk over his decision to charge $8 monthly for Twitter Blue, which now gives subscribers a verified checkmark previously used by Twitter's former management to help prevent impersonation.