Musk trolls AOC after Twitter spat over subscription fees

Newly-minted Twitter "Chief Twit" Elon Musk trolled New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday following a digital spat on the website between AOC and a venture capitalist over the upcoming paid subscription service on the platform.

"Your feedback is appreciated, now pay $8," the platform owner wrote in response to the New York Democrat's musings on the paid services Musk plans to offer. He previously announced a new verification process by which people could pay for the infamous check mark. "Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn't have a blue checkmark is bullsit," Musk announced in a tweet. "Power to the people! Blue for $8/month."

Musk's own retort follows a heated exchange between AOC and venture capitalist David Sacks over the proposed implementation of a subscription plan on Twitter.

"Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that 'free speech' is actually a $8/mo subscription plan," Ocasio-Cortez wrote on the platform, in reference to owner Elon Musk's purported revenue overhaul. Musk has heavily emphasized that he seeks to curtail the platform's extant censorship practices and permit the presence of diverging viewpoints on Twitter.

"Why aren't [The New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic] free? Their billionaire owners should stop being greedy and give us those products for free," retorted Sacks, per The Hill. Those outlets place many articles behind a paywall and require regular subscription fees to access most of their content.

Ocasio-Cortez took exception to the comparison, asserting that a public platform with minimal moderation was not a comparable entity to the legacy media. 

"Are you seriously equating an app where people are torrenting racial slurs at an accelerated clip with the New York Times," she replied. "Also fyi, legacy newspapers actually care about verifying newsworthy sources. And they don't charge their journalists/creators for 'priority' placement."