Greta Thunberg responds to Trump's attack after her Time Person of the Year win

Teenager deploys cool and calm reaction to US president's angry Twitter outburst

Greta Thunberg, the teenager whose grassroots protest inspired a generation to act on climate change, has responded after being picked on by the president of the United States.

Donald Trump used social media to directly attack the teenager after she was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year – telling her to “chill out” and “work on her anger management problem”.

He added that the 16-year-old, who beat him to the title for her commitment to holding governments to account over the climate, should “go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend”.

However Greta responded with a social media message of her own – indirectly acknowledging Mr Trump’s tweet by changing the personal biography on her twitter account to read: “A teenager working on her anger management problem. Currently chilling and watching a good old fashioned movie with a friend.”

It is not the first time Greta has been attacked by a world leader for her approach to climate issues – nor is it the first time she has deployed the tactic of changing her bio to tacitly acknowledge their anger.

In September the US president attended the same event as Greta, who furiously told world leaders she would "never forgive them" for letting down her generation on climate change.

At the time Mr Trump tweeted that: "She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see". In turn the teenager changed her profile to read “A very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future."

Similarly Greta was called a brat by Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro after she condemned the slaughter of indigenous environmental protectors in the Brazilian Amazon.

(Twitter (Twitter)

In response her bio was changed to pirralha – the Portuguese word the leader of the world’s 9th-largest economy had hurled at her.

Having started her work to hold the powerful to account over their response to climate change at the age of 15, Greta has spoken openly about the criticism she receives both for her message and terse style of delivery.

The teenager has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, a variant of autism which can effect a person’s relation to social and emotional cues while also having an impact on communication.

When haters go after your looks and differences, it means they have nowhere left to go,” she wrote on Twitter in August, adding: “And then you know you’re winning.”

“I have Aspergers and that means I’m sometimes a bit different from the norm. And - given the right circumstances - being different is a superpower.”