And he does good at rockets, too, by the way,” he told CNBC at Davos in February, calling him one of the “world’s great geniuses,” and “one of our very smart people, and we want to cherish those people.” In one of his rare political endorsements, he threw his weight behind Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who shared his views on a universal basic income in an increasingly automated society.īut unlike other tech billionaires, whom Trump often attacks for disagreeing with him, the president continued to express his admiration for the South African-born polymath, even before the coronavirus. Musk, who is a registered independent voter and previously described his views as moderate, has openly criticized Trump in the past, suggesting in 2016 that he “doesn’t seem to have the sort of character” needed to be president, blasting him in 2017 for withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement and withdrawing from his business advisory groups as a result. And I think that really does kind of resonate with Trump.” Musk’s representatives did not return a request for comment.īefore the Covid-19 crisis, the only things both men had in common seemed to be their shared desire to send mankind back to the moon, and their tendency for unfiltered, occasionally nonsensical tweets. If fake news media is going to say lies about me, screw them. “But there is sort of an attitude of, if Texas is going to let me run my business, that’s great. “We don’t see him hinting and nodding and winking at the alt-right, and we don’t see him hinting or nodding or winking at racism or sexism,” Lowe said. Tiana Lowe, a conservative commentator for the Washington Examiner who recently wrote an article defending Musk, said she hoped it was a sign that Musk fans and Trump fans could find common ground over their shared enemies. But Trump-friendly conservatives eagerly welcomed a fellow Covid-19 skeptic into the fold. Musk’s statements may be as cryptic as his newborn son’s name: Observers were quick to point out that he’d added a red rose emoji, the symbol of the Democratic Socialists of America, at the end of his “red pill” tweet, throwing his vague endorsement of Trumpist ideals into doubt. “Meaning that when they don’t like the way things are turning out, they aren’t afraid to pick up the box and shake it, creating new combinations of things that everyone before them had neatly packed in there.” “Elon has a lot in common with Trump they are both people that ‘shake the box,’” said Logan Cook, a prominent meme creator in Trump’s online base whose images under his online identity “Carpe Donktum” frequently make their way into the president’s retweet pipeline, and whose internet-obsessed fan base often overlaps with Musk’s iconoclastic libertarian internet cult. His cryptic tweet about taking “the red pill” - a reference to The Matrix and an internet term that, broadly speaking these days, means that one is questioning the nature of political reality - was seconded by none other than Ivanka Trump, who tweeted in response: “Taken!” On Sunday, May 17, Musk tweeted, 'Take the red pill.' And Ivanka Trump, upon seeing Musk's tweet, responded, 'taken!' Lilly Wachowski, in response to their tweets, posted, 'Fuck both of you.' In a separate tweet, Musk (who has 34 million followers on Twitter), described 'the red pill' as 'one of my fav Matrix memes.Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Subscribe on Spotifyīut the tech billionaire has gained new admirers - thanks to his public spats with California lawmakers over his desire to reopen his factories in spite of government orders, his desire to keep the lights on and, crucially, his growing disdain for media outlets such as CNN. But when the alt-right adopted the term, they give it a far-right, socially conservative anti-feminist connotation - one in which someone who 'takes the red pill' has had an alt-right awakening and rejects liberal or progressive ideology.

In the first 'Matrix' film, taking 'the red pill' means accepting a dystopian world as it really is. Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently used the expression in a tweet that White House Senior Adviser Ivanka Trump forwarded - and Lilly Wachowski is calling them out for it.

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.Īlthough the term 'the red pill' has come to be identified with far-right anti-feminist websites such as Return of Kings, that's not where it originated: the expression made its debut in sisters Lilly and Lana Wachowski's first of three 'Matrix' films.

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