Elon Musk hit back at Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Tuesday, saying she reminded him of an “angry mom” after the progressive senator accused the billionaire and entrepreneur of “freeloading” on Monday.
The news came after Musk was named Time’s 2021 “Person of the Year” on Monday. At the time, Warren tweeted: “Let’s change the rigged tax code so The Person of the Year will actually pay taxes and stop freeloading off everyone else.”
Musk followed up the next day, telling her to “stop projecting.”
“You remind me of when I was a kid and my friend’s angry mom would just randomly yell at everyone for no reason,” he wrote.
In another Tweet, the CEO of Tesla said: “Please don’t call the manager on me, Senator Karen.” The term “Karen” is a slang term that refers to a middle-aged white woman who is angry and entitled.
Democrats including Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) decried the choice of Musk for the Time honor. Both accused the billionaire of not paying his fair share in taxes.
“We can’t believe Time Magazine just named Elon Musk its ‘Person of the Year,’” Jayapal said in a statement. “The richest person in the world and yet he avoids paying his taxes while working families struggle to put food on the table and pay rent.”
Musk surpassed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as the richest man in the world this year. His net worth is over $290 billion.
According to a report released by ProPublica in June, the billionaire paid $68,000 in federal income taxes in 2015, $65,000 in 2017 and no federal income taxes in 2018.
Brown accused Musk of “union-busting” following a 2019 National Labor Relations Board ruling that Tesla acted illegally for firing an employee pushing to unionize.
“A billionaire who has been found guilty of illegal union-busting [National Labor Relations Board] should probably not be @TIME’s Person of the Year,” Brown tweeted.
The back and forth between the businessman and the senator comes the same day that six current and former Tesla employees filed a lawsuit in Alameda County, Calif., alleging sexual harassment in the workplace.