It’s not hard to see why Elon Musk has become a favourite of the “new right”, the insurgent group of irony-poisoned MAGA populists that’s taken control of the US conservative movement.
He is, after all, a billionaire businessman who loves talking about free speech and posting right-wing memes on Twitter, and hates cancel culture, unions and journalists. He has a Trump-like fan base that worships him as a rise-and-grind visionary who is both a technical genius and an everyman. He even fulfils the trope of a disgruntled Democrat voter who’s now recommending people vote for Republicans in this week’s midterms (although he still claims he’s an independent).
He’s been embraced by the right. Figures like the influential online account Libs of TikTok, QAnon-believing Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Senator Ted Cruz all celebrated his takeover of Twitter. Last month, the GOP even placed him on its own Mount Rushmore: “Kanye. Elon. Trump.” it tweeted.
An inconvenient truth for these right-wing politicians, media figures and fans is that he is CEO of the world’s best-known electric vehicle and clean energy company, Tesla.
This is uncomfortable because the new right is climate denialist. Even those who accept the climate is changing largely oppose renewables and certainly oppose subsidies for the technology.
Meanwhile, Musk has been at the forefront of popularising electric cars and home batteries and has campaigned against using fossil fuels — all while raking in billions of dollars of government subsidies.
(It’s worth noting that Musk’s Tesla business has earned the ire of some on the left as well for reasons including promoting private vehicles over public transport and for his notorious union-busting efforts, just to name just a few.)
How does the new right reconcile this contradiction? Simply: it doesn’t. Rather than acknowledging the cognitive dissonance of boosting a man who made most of his wealth from cashing in on climate action, it is all too happy to turn a blind eye. Because at the end of the day, political coherency is less important than triggering the left.
