A Tesla reportedly belonging to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was spotted being parked illegally outside a Whole Foods in Washington, D.C.
The white Tesla Model 3 was photographed with New York plates and a Congressional parking pass in a no-parking zone near Ocasio-Cortez's D.C. apartment on May 14, as reported by the Washington Free Beacon.
Sources told the Free Beacon that the congresswoman had been seen driving a white Tesla in the neighborhood. The publication also cited a congress member, who chose to remain anonymous, seeing her drive the vehicle into a House parking lot on Capitol hill.
AOC Has Previously Admitted to Owning an EV
Ocasio-Cortez has previously admitted to owning an electric vehicle. In October 2020, she told Vanity Fair that she had bought an EV to avoid having to take public transport to commute from New York City to D.C. amid the coronavirus pandemic.
"I usually travel by train, but due to COVID I now drive by car, I travel by car," Ocasio-Cortez said during an Instagram Live. "Not a combustion engine vehicle, but I travel by car between New York and D.C."
The car blog Tire Meets Road has speculated that AOC most likely owns a Long Range variant of the Tesla Model 3 as it is one of the only electric vehicle models capable of making the trip from New York to D.C. and back on a single charge. The model has a retail price of between $46,000 and $59,000.
AOC Publicly Opposed Tesla, Whole Foods
If the Tesla did, in fact, belong to Ocasio-Cortez and if she did park the vehicle illegally while visiting a Whole Foods store, it would undermine her credibility and political identity as a socialist. She once said billionaires should not exist while Americans live in poverty. Tesla is run by a billionaire Elon Musk while Whole Foods is owned by Amazon, which is led by Jeff Bezos.
In 2018, Ocasio-Cortez criticized Tesla during a climate change town hall hosted by Sen. Bernie Sanders. "For far too long, we gave money to Tesla, we gave money to a ton of people and we got no return on our investment that the public made in creating technologies, and it's about time we get our due because it's the public that funded and financed a lot of innovative technologies," she said.
It is an interesting irony that AOC's car was spotted outside a Whole Foods after she famously thwarted its parent company Amazon's attempt to build a new headquarters in New York City.
In 2019, Ocasio-Cortez spearheaded a campaign that ultimately forced Amazon to cancel its plans to build a second headquarters in Queens. After left-wing activists successfully scuttled the proposed headquarters, which would have brought more than 25,000 jobs to the area, the congresswoman declared victory, saying "anything is possible."
