Elon Musk & Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Spar Online Over Verification Price

Elon Musk is continuing his bizarre business strategy of fighting with the most popular accounts on the platform he just bought, Twitter. This latest spat was with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), who is an highly-followed account on the site.

AOC, along with plenty of other users, has balked at the idea of paying $8 a month for verification on a once-free website. Musk has made a few attempts at “witty” retorts in response to the politician’s criticisms, but AOC has returned every shot and then some.

First, Musk simply responded “now pay $8” to AOC’s first tweet skewering the business decision.

Musk has indicated that he will both make already-verified accounts pay for verification, and also allowed users that weren’t previously verified to get the blue check mark if they cough up the cash.

He also noted in a Twitter thread that those paying will get “priority in replies, mentions & search.”

Musk later tweeted a screenshot of a sweatshirt for sale on Ocasio-Cortez’s website for $58, and AOC quickly responded with a list of reasons why they charge that amount. Spoiler: She’s treating her workers well, something Musk may need to take some advice on.

Ever since Musk took over Twitter and made several demands, employees have worked over the weekend, with some working the equivalent of an 84-hour work week according to CNBC.

Various projects including changes to the verification system and a potential resurrection of Vine are things employees may be losing sleep over at the moment.

Some workers may not even have a job after these intense sprints, because some reports say Musk is planning to lay off anywhere from a quarter to half of Twitter’s total staff to cut costs.