Elon Musk may have met his match.
Democratic Senator Ed Markey recently tweeted a reply to Elon Musk that he should mind his companies are under heavy scrutiny and that the issues that caused it must be addressed soon before congress makes him do it.
This reply is a response to Musk's "provocation" against Sen. Markey about his Twitter account sounding like a "parody" instead of a legitimate Twitter account, per Engadget.
Sen Ed Markey vs. Elon Musk Details
To understand where Sen. Markey's replies came from, we have to start at the beginning. According to Sen. Markey's first tweet mentioning Musk, A reporter for the Washington Post was able to create a verified account impersonating him by creating an account and buying Twitter Blue, which provides the "verified" blue check account badge.
You may remember that Musk abandoned Twitter's previous rules for verification to give "power to the people" by giving anyone who pays for Twitter Blue a "verified" blue check badge on their account.
As a result, the reporter revealed the problem with the current way Musk runs Twitter's verification system, which some celebrities, such as Sarah Silverman and Valerie Bertinelli, got suspended for.
Sen. Markey's tweet also came with a letter addressed to Musk containing the same grievances the senator wrote in his tweet and a few questions regarding Twitter Blue and the "verified" blue check badge.
In response to this tweet, Elon Musk seemingly provoked Sen. Markey by implying that his official Twitter account sounds like a parody instead. of a proper one.
Musk also asked Sen. Markey why his profile picture (read as pp in Musk's tweet) has a mask, suggesting that the senator is trying to make his account look ambiguous with the face mask he has on his profile picture.
Sen. Markey, in response to Musk's provocating tweets, reminded Musk that Tesla and SpaceX are under investigation.
You may remember that Tesla is under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for the casualties involving the company's Fully-Self Driving system.
Meanwhile, Twitter is under the scrutiny of the Federal Trade Commission for violating its consent agreement after just two weeks of Musk owning it, per CNN.
As such, Sen. Markey told Musk to fix his companies, while warning him that congress would if he failed to do so.
Musk has yet to respond to Sen. Markey's tweet.
Will Sen. Markey Follow Through With His Warning?
The likelihood of Sen Markey actually pulling the trigger on launching a regulatory response against Elon Musk's companies is high considering that Democrats secured a Senate majority in the recent mid-term elections.
Sen. Markey is also a member of the Subcommittee on Communications, Media, and Broadband, which has jurisdiction over all sectors of communications, which include the internet, per its official website.
Additionally, senators previously called on the NHTSA to take "aggressive investigative and enforcement action" on Tesla's vehicles with automated driving systems and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) following the Administration's report on the casualties involving Tesla's ADAS.
