Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has hit out at Elon Musk after Twitter began removing blue ticks and said the move could pave the way “for major potential harm”.

The New York congresswoman and Tesla chief have been involved in Twitter spats before.

This is not the first time AOC, as the congresswoman is affectionately known, has lashed out against Mr Musk on the social media platform.

When the Twitter boss had announced last year that those who want to retain their blue ticks must pay $8 to the company, Ms Ocasio-Cortez had mocked the move. “Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that ‘free speech’ is actually an $8/mo subscription plan,” she had tweeted.

On Friday, AOC shared a screenshot of an exchange between two Twitter handles – @nycgov and @NYC_GOVERNMENT – both claiming to be the official handles of the New York City government.

“Jokes aside, this is setting the stage for major potential harm when a natural disaster hits and no one knows what agencies, reporters, or outlets are real,” she said.

“Not long ago we had major flash floods. We had to mobilize trusted info fast to save lives. Today just made that harder.”

The congresswoman has also previously claimed Mr Musk had meddled with her account. Ms Ocasio-Cortez complained that following a public argument, her Twitter account had seemingly stopped working properly.

“Yo (Elon Musk) while I have your attention, why should people pay $8 just for their app to get bricked when they say something you don’t like?” she tweeted.

Mr Musk replied back at the Democrat and said, “What can I say? It was a naked abuse of power.”

In December last year, Ms Ocasio-Cortez condemned Mr Musk after he suspended the accounts of half a dozen journalists who routinely reported on him and the social media platform.

“I get feeling unsafe, but descending into abuse of power + erratically banning journalists only increases the intensity around you,” the Democratic lawmaker said.

“As someone who has been subject to real and dangerous plots, I do get it. I didn’t have security and have experienced many scary incidents,” she said.

“In fact, many of the right-wing outlets you now elevate published photos of my home, car, etc. At a certain point you gotta disconnect. Maybe try putting down your phone,” she suggested.

“You first lol,” responded Mr Musk.

When the billionaire had laid off staff at Twitter, the Congresswoman tweeted: “Shout out to all the workers at Twitter. You all built a vital place for connection and deserved so much better. Millions of people appreciate the space you built and the hard work that went into it. Thank you.”

Meanwhile, Mr Musk said he is “personally” paying for Twitter Blue subscriptions for a few celebrities who had declined to subscribe by themselves.

The Twitter chief confirmed he is paying for the accounts of William Shatner, Stephen King and LeBron James to retain their blue tick verification badges.

Taylor Swift, Ryan Reynolds and Ellen DeGeneres are some celebrities who appear to have signed on for Twitter’s subscription service to keep their blue tick verification marks.

Beginning on Thursday evening, the company formally deleted the blue verification checkmarks given to accounts run by notable people and organisations in an attempt to get more people to sign up for the new subscription service.

An analysis by independent researcher Travis Brown last week, however, suggested only about 4.4 per cent of Twitter’s legacy verified accounts had subscribed to Twitter Blue so far.

“Legacy verification seems to be gone for good... but I have an almost complete recent list of 407.5k legacy verified accounts,” tweeted Mr Brown, who has been tracking Twitter Blue subscriptions since earlier this year.

“Just over a week to Elon’s next deadline and right now of the 406k legacy verified accounts I’m tracking, only 17,923 (4.4 per cent) are subscribed to Twitter Blue,” he said.

The researcher added on Friday that this number didn’t even go above “4.8 per cent.”

These numbers could change over time as more users may sign up for the subscription service.

Celebrities in the music industry, including Swift, Rihanna, Britney Spears and The Weeknd are some of those who seem to have subscribed to Twitter Blue. Their account verification badges are still intact.

Other prominent celebrities who still have their verification badges on display include Snoop Dogg, Cardi B, Joe and Nick Jonas, Shawn Mendes, David Guetta and Chance the Rapper, Mashable first reported.

Hollywood actors like Neil Patrick Harris, Chris Hemsworth and Hugh Jackman still have their blue ticks.

Social media influencers Jake and Logan Paul as well as Mr Beast, and talk show hosts and comedians DeGenres and Jimmy Fallon’s accounts have also subscribed to Twitter Blue.

Some popular celebrities earlier announced they would not pay for a blue checkmark.

Halle Berry tweeted on Thursday that she was “joining” unverified users on the platform.

Jack Black, who had earlier said he would “call Elon Musk’s bluff” over his Twitter verification purge, also lost the blue tick.

Chrissy Teigen, Dionne Warwick and Ben Stiller had also rejected the idea of paying for their verified accounts. They had lost their blue ticks earlier in April.

“No blue check, still feel like me,” Mr Stiller tweeted on Friday.

Asked by a Twitter user if he could pay $8 and “support the platform” he was using, the actor quipped, “I think Elon will be fine.”

Twitter had also removed the blue tick from the main profile of The New York Times after the news organisation said it would not sign up for the subscription service.

Some prominent figures from the UK, including Ricky Gervais, Prince William and Princess Kate have also lost their blue ticks.