Elon’s Heel Turn

The billionaire helped the Right. But the Right now may be better off without Musk.

There’s a simple rule in conservative politics: don’t make an enemy of Donald Trump. Elon Musk is now learning this the hard way. The former first friend crashed out against Trump last week over the big, beautiful bill. His dispute escalated from there. Musk claimed Trump is in the Jeffrey Epstein files, implying the president is a pedophile. He also endorsed Malaysian grifter Ian Miles Cheong’s call to impeach Trump.

His relationship with Trump is likely over, as his star status on the Right. Most are blackpilled by this development, but it does come with its upsides. Musk has demonstrated he is too unstable and narcissistic to effectively lead the Right.

Elon undoubtedly benefited the Right. His purchase of Twitter literally changed the country and helped make it more right-wing. That move made social media freer across the board and played a significant role in Trump’s election. Through his platform, he elevated many important topics, such as the Great Replacement and anti-white racism. He donated millions of dollars to Trump’s campaign and other right-wing causes. DOGE was a noble effort that demonstrated the second Trump term would be worlds apart from the listless first term. It went after the right targets and made the right enemies. Even though it proved disappointing, it at least shut down USAID.

The Tesla entrepreneur deserves conservatives’ gratitude for what he’s done. But that doesn’t mean he deserves to be worshipped as a god, as his cult of personality demands. For all Elon’s work, he comes with serious baggage that no longer can be ignored. His personality cult was inevitably going to run up against Trump’s if Musk didn’t get his way. It’s built on horrible political instincts and horrible vibes. Its influence has made the Right more cringe in many ways. It’s also made the Right follow an unstable, socially-stunted nerd with a drug problem.

It’s great to have the world’s richest man on your side, especially when he owns an important social media platform. But if he wants to turn the Right into his own vanity project, it’s not worth keeping around.

His terrible instincts were on full display with his attacks on Trump. He quickly alienated the Right. The vast majority of Republican lawmakers backed away from the billionaire they once fawned over. Despite Elon and his sycophants demanding their followers blow up Capitol Hill’s phone lines, lawmakers reported no increase in calls, demonstrating his lack of sway over real-world Americans. On Musk’s own platform, Trump supporters ratioed his posts. Conservative media sided with Trump and cast the tech entrepreneur as the bad guy.

Musk doubled-down on his stupidity in his vow to create a third party to represent the “80% in the middle.” This has to be one of Elon’s most retarded ideas yet. One, third parties always fail in our two-party system. Two, Elon’s platform would not represent 80 percent of the country. It would represent his niche concerns that are shared by few voters. He believes that 80 percent of the country wants massive cuts to popular entitlements (in fact, nearly 80 percent oppose such cuts), increased Indian immigration, protection of electric vehicle tax credits, more subsidies for his business interests, and slavish appreciation of his 2014 era Reddit humor. No one wants this platform besides the billionaire and content farmers wanting a bigger X payout.

He managed to promote an even dumber idea with his call for impeachment. He legitimately believed he could get Republicans to impeach Trump for not gutting social security and removing the EV mandate. On top of all this, this call didn’t even come from an American. It came from an Asian man who has never set foot in America. Ian Miles Cheong is emblematic of Musk’s fandom.

Musk does have a fanbase online, but it doesn’t translate into the real-world. Many of his fans are overseas, particularly in India. They barely know English, so they find Elon’s elementary humor funny. The rest are extremely disagreeable libertarians, crypto scammers, autistic tech guys, and bottom-of-the-barrel content farmers. He lost his hero status among liberals when he veered to the Right. His support on the Right is firmly tied to his backing of Trump. Without that, far fewer conservatives are willing to tolerate Elon. Right now, his only support for a third party is among foreigners who can’t vote and nerds at the margins of American society.

Despite his terrible political instincts, Elon still has a lot of money he can give. However, Elon mostly insists on spending his money through his America PAC, which offers idiotic ads and debatably legal cash giveaways. Its big ad in the 2024 race was an entirely unconvincing commercial relying on Elon’s Reddit humor. It called Kamala Harris a communist and not–so-subtly a cunt. It’s doubtful this ad convinced anyone to vote for Trump. Musk’s money will be spent more on cringe ads displaying the Dogefather’s horrible sense of humor rather than helping the Right win elections. Trump is likely right that Elon’s money played little role in helping him win. Musk aided Trump’s victory through turning X into a right-wing propaganda vehicle, not through his America PAC.

Elon doesn’t get politics because he doesn’t get people. He knows how to make a lot of money and build rocket ships. But he doesn’t know what makes people tick. It’s why he’s a deeply unfunny person. Funny people know what makes people laugh and can relate the human experience in pithy one-liners and humorous anecdotes. Elon can’t do that. His narcissism makes him believe he’s an extremely funny person. He bought Twitter in part to make people laugh at his profoundly unfunny jokes. He succeeded in that endeavor, as prominent politicians and commentators all had to laugh when he changed his X name to “Harry Bolz” and put on two hats at the same time during a White House meeting.

Compare his personality to Trump. Trump understands people. He knows what makes them tick and he’s an extremely funny person. Even his haters laugh at his one liners. He’s capable of humor because he understands people and the human experience. Elon doesn’t, which is why he’s bad at politics.

Elon, fundamentally, is a very weird person. Elon has several baby mamas, many of whom he artificially inseminated. (Conservatives had to pretend Musk was a model family man because he would take one of his 14 kids out in public.) He allegedly has a drug problem. He’s also an extremely thin-skinned man. In January, he banned X accounts who questioned his skills at Diablo IV. Video game influencers found some evidence that the world’s wealthiest man may have artificially inflated his ranking. Even though he runs multiple companies and was planning DOGE’s operations, Musk made this controversy his number one priority. He spent an entire week trying to insist his high ranking in the game is legitimate and denouncing his critics. No one would find this normal behavior for a 53-year-old father of 14. Yet, many conservative influencers took time away from other news to celebrate Elon as the greatest gamer of all time.

Elon’s background explains his weirdness and need to be seen as “cool.” He grew up as an outsider in South Africa. His family were Anglos while the dominant whites were Afrikaners. He was severely bullied in school as he focused on nerdy pursuits. He has a horrible relationship with his father. This background explains why he’s desperate to be liked, but he struggles to figure out how to achieve that. Nearly all of his fans like him for his money, not his personality. But Elon wants to be admired for who he is, not for the money he made. He still hasn’t figured out how to do that.

Trump, on the other hand, grew up as a popular jock and had a great relationship with his father. He didn’t need to try to make people like him–it came naturally to him. Even though he’s widely criticized for having “thin skin,” he’s remarkably thick-skinned. Many of his outbursts are strategic and end up working in his favor. He knows how to bait people and what wins the crowds to his side. Elon’s recent outburst was not strategic at all. It demonstrated his inability to understand how people work.

Elon’s lack of political understanding extended to DOGE. He legitimately believed that he could cut trillions of dollars through such an initiative, being completely unaware of how our government works and the laws that rule it. He felt Congress would easily vote for significant cuts if he simply asked them to. He sincerely believed no rich guy had ever told them about the debt and didn’t know about any competing interests that would oppose his efforts. When DOGE failed to deliver on what he promised, he was humiliated. The thin-skinned nerd whose wealth has made people say he’s always right couldn’t take failure. The fault for this lay with himself, but he couldn’t handle the embarrassment. His crashout was driven by a desire to blame others for DOGE’s failures, so he directed his anger at Trump. He thought the bots, content farmers, and Indians who glaze him online represented real America. He learned that these weren’t even Americans boosting his posts. The base reaffirmed its loyalty to Trump during the ordeal.

Elon’s influence has pushed right-wingers to talk about the Great Replacement and South Africa’s black supremacist regime. But he’s also injected the Right with a large dose of cringe. He named a government agency after a stupid shitcoin. He awkwardly played with a chainsaw at CPAC while influencers rushed to share the video as the most EPIC thing ever. Influencers were also forced to cheer on Elon’s autistically jumping up-and-down at Trump rallies. He made corniness the core vibe. Elon’s vibe is that of try-hard nerd humor. It’s what was spoofed on The Big Bang Theory. It’s fundamentally uncool and soy.

Leftists have gravitated to the term “Soy Right” to describe this phenomenon. Blogger Max Read defines it as “right-wingers who have adopted the sensitive, aggrieved victimhood pose and corny rhetorical and personal style that they have spent the last 10 years attributing to liberals.” The “victimhood” part isn’t accurate, but the “corny rhetorical and personal style” rings true. Elon is more responsible for this cringe than any other figure. With him gone, the Right can cultivate a less dorky style.

The other plus of Elon’s diminished status is that there will be less support for increasing Indian immigration. No one should forget the billionaire’s Christmas meltdown over how we need more Indian migrants. Prominent Republicans would entertain this idea just to please Musk and other tech execs. Now they no longer need to worry about pleasing the mercurial billionaire. If Trump wants to pay back Musk for his disloyalty, he should consider further restrictions on H-1Bs.

Musk is still the wealthiest man in the world and he still owns conservatives’ favorite social media platform. He can still return to the good graces of the MAGA faithful. But he will never regain his status as the second most popular man on the Right. His attempt to challenge Trump failed miserably. His real-world clout pales in comparison to Trump. His popularity on X is utterly dependent on paying influencers to like him. Trump doesn’t need to pay people to like him. That’s why his personality cult succeeds where Elon’s fails.