Elon Musk has been called out by social media users for telling Bernie Sanders: "I keep forgetting you’re still alive."
The 50-year-old Tesla CEO and 80-year-old United States senator got into a Twitter spat earlier this week after Sanders tweeted out: "We must demand that the extremely wealthy pay their fair share. Period."
Sanders is an outspoken advocate for having billionaires pay - as he describes it - "their fair share in taxes".
However, Musk - who has previously butted heads with Sanders on social media - was not impressed by the former US Rep's statement, and replied with a few tweets of his own.
In one, Musk asked: "Ok, how much do you think is fair? Does 53% seem reasonable?"
However, in one tweet many people took umbrage with, the billionaire businessman wrote: "I keep forgetting that you’re still alive."
In response to the comment, writer Charlotte Clymer responded saying: "It's pretty cowardly to go this route instead of engaging him directly in good faith on the merits of the topic. Probably because you know he's right, and you don't have much of an argument to make other than you simply don't want to pay your fair share."
Author and civil rights activist Shaun King responded to Musk's comments saying: "What a deeply gross and inhumane thing to say."
Others went on to call Musk's reply "despicable" and "infantile".
And in yet another tweet aimed at Sander, the SpaceX CEO said: "Bernie is a taker, not a maker."
And this certainly isn't the first time Sanders and Musk have disagreed on matters.
Back in March, Sanders told Musk to focus on a progressive tax system and to concentrate on Earth-based issues as opposed to space exploration - and even went as far as to call the billionaire's level of wealth "immoral" and "unsustainable" for the economy.
"When we talk about rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, we must include low-income and affordable housing," Sanders wrote in a tweet, adding: "Today, 500,000 Americans are homeless, and 18 million spend 50% of their incomes on shelter. We can create millions of jobs building the housing we desperately need."
He continued: "We are in a moment in American history where two guys - Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos - own more wealth than the bottom 40% of people in this country. That level of greed and inequality is not only immoral. It is unsustainable."
In response to an article highlighting the tweets, Musk wrote: "I am accumulating resources to help make life multi-planetary & extend the light of consciousness to the stars."
However, Musk's response left Sanders unimpressed, who the week prior had introduced a proposal to increase corporate taxes on companies that pay top executives at least 50 times more than their median worker’s pay.
Sanders promptly tweeted back: "Space travel is an exciting idea, but right now we need to focus on Earth and create a progressive tax system so that children don’t go hungry, people are not homeless and all Americans have healthcare.
"The level of inequality in America is obscene and a threat to our democracy."
