The 19-year-old hilariously responded to taunts by the controversial former kickboxer and self-styled “misogynist,” only for him to be promptly arrested over sex trafficking claims.

The globally renowned climate activist gained almost 800,000 followers between 27 and 31 December, gaining 354,000 new fans on 30 December, alone, according to social media statistics website Social Blade.

Thunberg clapped back at the 36-year-old who mocked her environmental campaigning on Twitter.

Tate posted a photo of himself on Twitter filling up his Bugatti supercar with gasoline on December 28 boasting the “enormous emissions” from his 33-strong luxury car collection.

He tagged her in the tweet and asked for her email address so he could “send a complete list of my car collection and their respective enormous emissions.”

Thunberg retweeted Tate with the reply: “yes, please do enlighten me. email me at smalld***energy@getalife.com.”

It went on to become one of the most-liked tweets in Twitter history, and has 3.9 millions likes at the time of publishing.

Not content at leaving it there, Tate responded with a video of him wearing a robe and smoking a cigar. He then received a box of pizza from a popular chain in Romania.

“Thank you for confirming via your email address that you have a small penis @GretaThunberg. The world was curious. And I do agree you should get a life,” he said.

He then sarcastically added: “I’m obviously a stranger to online controversy, it’s not something I often do.”

During the video, Tate questioned the teenager’s gender and asserted she had been “programmed” and that she was a “slave of the matrix.”

But less than 24 hours after posting the video, Tate was detained alongside his brother Tristan, 34, and two Romanian nationals by police.

The four detainees are under investigation for allegedly creating an organized criminal group, human trafficking and rape, according to Romanian Police and Romania’s Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT)

Romanian Police told Newsweek their alleged victims were were “transported and housed in buildings in Ilfov County where, by exercising acts of physical violence and mental coercion (through intimidation, constant supervision, control and invoking alleged debts), they were sexually exploited by the members of the group… in order to obtain significant financial benefits.”

The brothers had been under investigation for months with some people musing that Tate may have accidentally given his location away, thanks to pizza boxes in the video response to Thunberg.

DIICOT denied this.

These claims are “funny, but no,” DIICOT spokesperson Ramona Bolla said.

DIICOT also described the alleged crimes in a statement: “So far, 6 injured persons have been identified who were sexually exploited by the organized criminal group.

“With regard to the crime of rape, it was noted that, in March 2022, an injured person was forced, on two different occasions, by a suspect through the exercise of physical violence and psychological pressure to have sexual relations.”

The Tate brothers live in Romania but are duel U.S. and British citizens. A judge approved a 30-day extension to their arrest warrant on Friday 30 December.