MSNBC host Joy Reid accused Tesla chief executive Elon Musk of stealing the term “Karen” from “black vernacular” during her show Wednesday.
During a segment of her show “The Reid Out,” Reid took aim at Musk, saying he is “opposed” to the Build Back Better Act and “wants to get rid of all government subsidies.” Reid also said Musk is “one of the most thin-skinned people on social media” after he got into a Twitter scuffle with Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Monday.
Reid showed Warren’s tweet during the segment, which proposed “changing the tax code” so Musk would “stop freeloading off everyone else” and “actually pay taxes.” (RELATED: Elon Musk Passes Jeff Bezos To Become Richest Man In The World)
Let’s change the rigged tax code so The Person of the Year will actually pay taxes and stop freeloading off everyone else. https://t.co/jqQxL9Run6
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) December 13, 2021
Musk responded, saying, “Please don’t call the manager on me, Senator Karen.”
Please don’t call the manager on me, Senator Karen 🙏
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 14, 2021
“Elon did what he always did and stomped his little feet and insulted Senator Warren,” Reid said. She labeled his treatment of Warren as “selfish and disrespectful,” claiming he “appropriated” the term “Karen” from “black vernacular for misogynistic purposes.”
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Warren made her “freeloading” comment about Musk following the news that Time Magazine had named him as their 2021 “Person of the Year.”
Reid hosted Warren on her show and gave her the opportunity to respond to Musk’s comments.
“The part that makes me really angry about this is on behalf of every public school teacher, every waitress, every computer programmer, every street cleaner who actually paid taxes, that means they paid more than Elon Musk did in federal income taxes,” said Warren. “That’s just not right. It means the system is broken and I and many others are trying to fix that.”
Warren also suggested Musk was able to accumulate his wealth because he was “subsidized by the federal government and every waitress and public school teacher who paid their taxes” saying he needed to “eat a big dish of that.”
Musk fired back at Reid on Thursday when replying to a tweet from the Daily Caller’s Brianna Lyman. The Tesla chief executive accused Reid of acting as “a lobbyist” for Warren.
(Lack of) Joy Reid is a lobbyist for Sen Karen
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2021
The term “Karen” is an insult typically directed at white women.