Elon Musk and Donald Trump: The Beavis and Butt-Head of right-wing edge lords

Well, well, well. Look who’s not besties anymore. Elon and Don, two of the world’s richest, loudest, and least self-aware men, have had a bit of a tiff. Or in the words of AOC: “The girls are fighting.”

It was always going to end like this. The tech libertarian and the tangerine authoritarian, two egos orbiting the same black hole of delusion, finally collided in what can only be described as a the pettiest falling out ever that might lead to the start of an actual war as a means of blowing off frustration.

Trump the chaos agent

Trump, ever the chaos agent, has been busy doing what he does best: acting on whatever errant neuron fires off in his skull at 3am while he’s trying to force out a turd and letting the rest of the world deal with the fallout.

Recent hits include banning asylum seekers at the southern border with the nuance of a boot stamping on a human face, picking a fight with Harvard like it’s a local Starbucks that got his coffee order wrong, and floating plans to ban citizens from a dozen countries because he doesn’t like their vibes. Classic strongman cosplay, straight from the Viktor Orbán playbook.

Trump can’t be trusted to look after his pals

Enter Elon, fresh from tweeting ketamine-fuelled memes on a platform he accidentally purchased for the price of a mid-sized European country. Musk’s latest drama? Realising that the man he has been following around like a groupie is now threatening the very subsidies his electric car empire depends on. Turns out, Trump can’t be trusted to look after his pals. Who knew?

Elon has discovered that his particular brand of performative right-wing edge lordism won’t help him when an aspiring dictator wants to bulldoze his industry because he’s in a mood. These two aren’t falling out over principle. They don’t have principles. They’re falling out because they can’t both be the main guy in the executive booth for the apocalypse show.

Musk tried to come for Trump with that Epstein jab, which is rich coming from a man whose idea of social responsibility is letting fascist meme accounts run wild on Twitter (sorry, X, a name that sounds like a porn site from 2003 and functions like one designed for neo-Nazis where the people getting fucked are minorities, people who like democracy and anyone with a sense of decency). The Epstein jab is doubly stupid when you remember Musk spent a fortune getting a supposed paedophile elected.

A wrecking ball dipped in gold paint

Trump, in return, has all the subtlety of a wrecking ball dipped in gold paint, and is spouting bile about Musk on his own social media platform Truth Social. Trump doesn’t forget slights, and if he can’t take down Musk’s businesses, he’ll happily take down the entire EV sector. Nothing screams “America First” like handing the car industry to China due to a personal vendetta. Considering electric vehicles is an industry America is actually good at. That and toxic political discourse, which the country is a net exporter of.

Meanwhile, the Venn diagram between Elon’s cult of tech bros - with weird views about women - and Trump’s angry flag-humping base - who are seconds away from burning down their local Taco Bell for being insufficiently American - is now just two circles slowly edging away from each other, to be two entirely distinct types of weirdos you don’t want in your mentions or cornering you in the supermarket.

Libertarians and authoritarian nationalists are natural enemies, like a hedge fund and the band of feral ferrets living in the walls of their Mayfair building. Both consider the other a pest to exterminate but due to the insanity of the modern age, end up cohabiting. Or like the foxes living on the roof of Google’s new £1bn building in King’s Cross: no one wanted any of this, but it’s somehow taken over everything because no one can come up with an alternative.

Terrifying power

The libertarians want to be left alone to invent new ways to avoid paying tax; the latter want to force you to say the Pledge of Allegiance before brushing your teeth. The only thing they agree on is that women have too many opinions.

It would be hilarious if it weren’t also terrifying. The sheer amount of power these two men wield - over infrastructure, over platforms, over minds - is staggering. When they fall out, it’s not just a Twitter spat. It’s markets shaking, civil rights eroding, and the vague threat of military deployment hanging in the air like a fart in a press conference. Just ask the people of California, how funny all this is.

It blows my mind that a certain number of supposedly sane people wanted all this - which was inevitably going to happen - over having Kamala Harris in The White House. I’m no Harris stan, but choosing Trump and Musk over her is like rejecting a slightly overcooked meal in favour of setting your kitchen on fire because you like the colour orange.

You’re next

You can say it doesn’t matter. You can say it’s an American problem. However, when the US has the nukes, the platforms, and the global reserve currency, their chaos is your chaos. The same way a butterfly flapping its wings in Florida might cause a hurricane in Essex, except the butterfly is a bloated narcissist and the hurricane is fascism.

What starts in LA - censorship, book bans, National Guard deployments - does not stay in LA. These people test their authoritarian wet dreams on the marginalised first, but you in Lincolnshire with your pension in S&P 500 ETFs? You’re next. Like I said, America is a net exporter of right-wing authoritarianism, and don’t think you’re safe because you also hate young lefties with blue hair protesting about Gaza.

The left needs to seize this moment

Trump and Musk are not outliers. They are the logical endpoint of a system that lets egomaniacs buy their way into control. They are the best argument we’ve ever had for taking power away from billionaires, expropriating their wealth, not giving them cabinet positions or letting them rebrand social collapse as “innovation.”

The left needs to seize this moment, not with sanctimony, but with strategy. These men are not gods. They are profoundly unserious people playing with serious things. They cannot be trusted with a spoon, let alone nukes, data, or democracy.

So yes, watch them fight. Enjoy it. Popcorn is fine. Just remember: the house is still on fire, and these two are pissing on it, then selling the livestream as an NFT.

Donald Trump picture taken by Gage Skidmore and used under creative commons.