Lame duck Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) accused Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) of being a pawn for “big tech cronies” on Wednesday, one day after Massie lost his primary to President Donald Trump’s preferred candidate.

Massie went after Cruz on X. He was responding to a clip of Cruz on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program the night before, where the senator said GOP lawmakers have a “real problem” if they go against Trump — which Cruz said Massie was a great example of.

“The stakes are too high. We’re not screwin’ around, this is not a game. If you want to just criticize everything, go write an op-ed online, go write a blog online,” Cruz said. “But if you’re going to take a congressional seat… with the excruciating narrow vote, we can’t mess around with this. We’ve got to deliver real results.”

Massie responded to Cruz by saying he was happy to have thwarted some artificial intelligence legislation Cruz pushed last year.

“I proudly stood in the way of your AI-data center amendment to the Big Beautiful Bill that would have given those companies immunity from the law,” Massie said. “In fact, [Marjorie Taylor Greene] and I got it stripped from the bill. Did your big tech cronies still let you cash their checks after you failed?”

Massie and Greene were aligned on other topics too. Both routinely called for the Justice Department to release more files on dead sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, and both were willing to publicly split with Trump on issues. Notably, Massie was one of two Republicans representatives who voted against Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill last year. He has also accused Trump of getting “dragged” into the Iran war by Israel.

Trump grew sick of Greene’s complaints last year and branded her a “traitor.” He also celebrated her quitting Congress last fall, saying it was “great news” for the country.

More recently, Trump has been focused on making sure Massie loses his primary. The president called Massie the “Worst Congressman” in U.S. history and urged Kentuckians to vote for “true American Patriot” Ed Gallrein instead, which the voters did on Tuesday night. Massie will be out of Congress in early 2027.

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