Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez of New York said that she would switch from her Tesla to another electric vehicle after a recent back and forth between the firebrand progressive and Tesla founder Elon Musk.
Ocasio-Cortez bought her Model 3 Tesla during the pandemic in 2020 to help her travel between Washington, D.C., and her Bronx-Queens District, New York, constituency.
“At the time, it was the only EV that could get me from New York to Washington on like one or one-and-a-half charges,” Ocasio-Cortez said, according to Bloomberg News.
But the outspoken member of the Squad now wants to buy an electric vehicle manufactured by workers who are part of unions.
“I would love to switch,” Ocasio-Cortez said, according to the outlet
Currently, Chevrolet Bolt, the Bolt EUV and the Ford F-150 lightning pickup are the only union-made electric automobiles available for sale in the United States, Bloomberg reported.
When asked about Elon Musk’s recent comments wherein he expressed support for Republicans and criticized unions, Ocasio-Cortez, according to Bloomberg, replied, “He’s a billionaire. I could care less what he thinks.”
Musk in an interview for episode 69 of the “All-In” podcast revealed that he would vote for a Republican in the upcoming midterm elections instead of the Democrats for whom he had hitherto voted “overwhelmingly.”
Would you buy a Tesla?
The celebrity tech businessman has recently grabbed headlines for his impending purchase of Twitter.
Musk’s purchase has irked Democrats and leftists who, contrary to Musk’s strong belief in the importance of free speech, hold that online discourse should be subject to regulation.
The South-Africa-born entrepreneur has also been critical of the Biden administration, recently labeling it an administration that “doesn’t seem to get a lot done,” the New York Post reported.
“The Trump administration, leaving Trump aside, there were a lot of people in the administration who were effective at getting things done,” Musk continued, according to the New York Post, stating that the Democrats are “overly controlled by the unions and by the trial lawyers, particularly class-action lawyers.”
Musk’s recent Twitter spat with Ocasio-Cortez began when the thirty-two-year-old lawmaker tweeted on April 29 that she was “[t]ired 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.”
Stop hitting on me, I’m really shy ☺️
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 29, 2022
“Stop hitting on me, I’m really shy,” Musk replied, to which Ocasio-Cortez responded in a Tweet deleted 57 seconds later, “I was talking about Zuckerberg but ok.”
When asked by a user why she had deleted that tweet, Ocasio-Cortez answered, “I try to avoid giving people with massive ego complexes like this the attention and QTs/replies they crave and are seeking (when I can help it).”
I try to avoid giving people with massive ego complexes like this the attention and QTs/replies they crave and are seeking (when I can help it ?)
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 30, 2022
Despite Musk’s politics, Tesla cars still remain a popular choice among Democrats. According to a Feb. 25 report from Electrek, Tesla buyers are usually more likely to be Democrats.
However, the brand has also gained popularity among Republicans, Electrek reported.
