Elon Musk reignited his long-running feud with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez by calling her “not that smart” after the progressive lawmaker claimed New York City’s migrant crisis paled in comparison to the number of people who came to the US through Ellis Island more than a century ago.
“The numbers — when it comes to people coming to New York City today — are nothing, I’m telling you, nothing, compared to the daily amounts of people that we saw coming in through Ellis Island in the first half of [last] century,” Ocasio-Cortez said in the video posted to her Instagram account on Friday.
Ocasio-Cortez, who recently repeated her pledge to trade in her Tesla for an electric vehicle produced by union labor, goes on to state that “more than 12 million immigrants passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954.”
“We had seen just huge numbers of people coming in per day that far eclipsed what we’re seeing right now,” said the Democrat, who represents parts of Queens and the Bronx.
Her attempt to play down the current crisis was lambasted on social media after the video was posted to Musk-owned X, the site formerly known as Twitter.
“Girl math is saying immigrants coming legally through Ellis Island is the same as 3 million undocumented migrants pouring through our border and costing NYC $1,000,000,000 to house migrants for free in hotels,” said Ashley St. Clair, a conservative commentator.
Musk on Wednesday replied to St. Clair’s post, writing: “She’s just not that smart.”
The Post has sought comment from Ocasio-Cortez.
The Tesla boss has a history of trolling Ocasio-Cortez on social media.
Last year, the mogul responded to her tweet about “some billionaire with an ego problem” by joking: “Stop hitting on me, I’m really shy.”
“I was talking about Zuckerberg but ok,” Ocasio-Cortez shot back at Musk, referring to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, before deleting the response about a minute later.
Since April of last year, more than 116,000 undocumented migrants who crossed illegally from Mexico and have sought asylum in the US have arrived in New York City.
Nearly half of them are being housed in the city’s shelter system while tens of thousands of others are staying at local hotels.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said that at its current pace, his administration will need to spend some $12 billion over the next three years to provide food and shelter for migrants — all of whom need to wait months before being granted work permits.
Ocasio-Cortez said on Sunday that US sanctions against Venezuela are partly to blame for the migrant crisis affecting New York.
“US sanctions that were originally authored by Marco Rubio … certainly took a large part in the driving of populations to our southern border,” she told CBS’s “Face the Nation,” referring to the Republican Florida senator.
The 33-year-old congresswoman argued that the recent US border surge took place “shortly after those broad-based sanctions were enacted.”
She later conceded that socialist Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is “absolutely” responsible for the influx as well.