Elon Musk’s “Dark MAGA” Conversion Could Spell Election Chaos

For years, Elon Musk liked to think of himself as a real-life Marvel superhero, a Tony Stark–esque genius who would save humanity from its greatest threats. He dressed like a superhero for Halloween. He once seemingly compared himself to Batman in a tweet. He was repeatedly called “the real-life Iron Man” in the media, and even made a cameo in Iron Man 2, reveling in the comparisons between him and a superhero. But the past few years have shown a different version of Musk—one more akin to a comic book supervillain who undergoes a dark transformation. Picture Spider-Man donning the all-black symbiote suit or Superman losing his moral compass. Yes, he’s gone through one of those classic transformations, and the shift seemed ironically complete when he appeared onstage at a Donald Trump rally this past weekend in Butler, Pennsylvania, wearing a black “Make America Great Again” hat and proudly declaring, “I’m dark MAGA,” before literally jumping up and down.

Now, I have no problem with people declaring their allegiance to Trump. We all have our political viewpoints. People may be voting for Trump because of their staunch belief in the Second Amendment, or because they’re drawn in by his promise of lower taxes (for the rich), or because they’re antiabortion, or because they’re steadfast supporters of Israel—or because they just hate Kamala Harris. But none of these reasons really apply to Musk, and the question that people can’t stop asking about him is: why? Is this about lower taxes? Did Harris kill his puppy when they were younger? Call him a bad name? Make fun of his hair? What exactly is it that made Musk transform from a Democrat-supporting champion of renewable energy and free speech to a Trump supporter and cultural warrior? What made him go from talking about the science of renewable energy and solar power to shilling conspiracy theories about the government’s Hurricane Helene response and baseless claims that undocumented immigrants are being used by Democrats to steal elections?

While it’s tempting to frame Musk’s recent embrace of far-right views as a strategic move tied to financial incentives or corporate interests, the former poster child for progressive ideals—who was arguably one of the most influential people fighting against climate change—appears to have made this ideological pivot for far more personal reasons. As one Silicon Valley insider put it to me: “This started when he became angry at authorities during COVID, when they forced him to close his car plants, and then he was truly radicalized about social issues by his daughter’s decision to transition.” The nail in the superhero coffin, it appears, was when she fought back against him in public, calling her father a “serial adulterer” and his actions “beyond stupid” and “desperate.” (To be fair, plenty of people have used one of those words against their parents before.)

Indeed, during the pandemic, Musk publicly fought against local government restrictions, particularly those imposed in Alameda County, California, which forced him to shut down Tesla’s Fremont factory. Defiantly, he reopened the factory in May 2020 against local orders, even tweeting, “If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.” (That may have seemed like a brave move, but it was really just chest-thumping; Musk knew full well that the United States wasn’t going to toss the richest man on earth in jail.) But that moment really fanned the flames, making Musk irate—not at the situation (in which tens of thousands of people were dying from COVID), but rather at Democratic state officials who were dictating what he could or couldn’t do with his factories, which he saw as an affront to his autonomy and his businesses’ survival.

If you imagine Musk’s views as a tightly woven fabric, this was the moment when you could see the first thread start to unravel. The COVID confrontation marked the beginning of Musk’s detachment from the left-leaning politics of California, which he came to see as an obstacle to his success.

Then, in 2022, he purchased Twitter.

That’s when his views started to flip-flop in all directions. One moment he was for free speech— declaring himself a “free speech absolutist”—and the next thing you know, he was suspending accounts and reinstating some previously banned users (like Trump), managing to silence those who criticized him, including users who impersonated him and journalists he found annoying. While he said he voted for Joe Biden in 2020, Musk endorsed Trump—whom he previously urged to “sail into the sunset”—in the immediate aftermath of the July assassination attempt. Oh, and there are his foreign policy takes: From suggesting that Ukraine give Crimea to Russia to proposing that Taiwan be made a “special administrative zone” of China, it’s as if Musk fancies himself a one-man United Nations, solving conflicts with the wisdom of a Twitter poll. To call Musk inconsistent would be generous—he’s more like a wind sock, blown about by whatever personal vendetta is closest to his heart at the time.

Which brings us to the impetus for the complete tearing of the thread that tied Musk to the left. The theory in Silicon Valley is that the thing that made him feel like he’d been “red-pilled” was not an attempt on Trump’s life, or his own taxes, but actually a family rift that spilled into the public eye.

This goes back to 2022, when his daughter Vivian came out as transgender and sought to legally change her last name from Musk to Wilson, citing her desire to have no relationship whatsoever with her father. In a court filing, she wrote: “I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.” The painful estrangement clearly left Musk feeling abandoned, and he blamed the entire thing on “the woke mind virus,” a term he now uses to describe progressive social values he sees as destructive. In his eyes, the left—which he once applauded, and whose members were the main purchasers of his innovations and ideals—had now taken away his child. (Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk suggests that this event played a major role in catalyzing his shift toward more extreme political views.)