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The “Dark MAGA” theory claims Musk and other tech elites aim to replace Trump with a CEO-style leader, raising fresh questions amid Musk’s public feud with the former president.
This AI-generated, surreal image represents the “Dark MAGA” conspiracy theory alleging a tech elite manipulating US politics to replace Donald Trump with a corporate-style leader. This theory is unproven and widely disputed. (IMAGE: DALLE 3 AI ENGINE)
Elon Musk’s now-deleted post claiming Donald Trump’s name appears in sealed Jeffrey Epstein files has sparked new scrutiny and reignited a conspiracy theory that links the Tesla CEO to a wider tech elite allegedly working to reshape American politics.
The theory, dubbed “Dark MAGA,” suggests Musk was never truly backing Trump but was instead part of a secretive tech elite aiming to replace him with a CEO-style leader of their choosing, reports by the Daily Beast and the Daily Mail said.
Musk’s now-deleted post accusing Trump of being named in Jeffrey Epstein’s files has only intensified speculation. The tech mogul claimed the documents have been kept secret before allegedly quietly erasing the post.
The theory stems from Musk’s symbolic shift during the 2024 campaign, where he was frequently seen wearing the black “Dark MAGA” cap, a twist on Trump’s red MAGA branding. Conspiracy theorists now argue this was always a signal and Musk’s way of declaring he had infiltrated the movement with a different agenda.
According to believers of the conspiracy, a shadowy network of billionaires including Musk and Peter Thiel, often referred to as the “PayPal Mafia,” want to dismantle democracy and transform the US into a corporatocracy led by a tech-appointed figurehead. Their supposed top pick? Vice President JD Vance.
The firestorm erupted after Musk shared, then deleted, a tweet saying: “Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT.”
He later doubled down by sharing a resurfaced 1992 video showing Trump partying with Epstein, adding only an inquisitive emoji. The explosive post caused chaos online before Musk allegedly abruptly took it down.
Responding to the allegation, JD Vance firmly rejected the claim, stating, “Absolutely not, Donald Trump didn’t do anything with Epstein.”
Vance also struck a conciliatory tone toward the Tesla boss, saying, “I hope eventually Elon comes back into the fold.”
The feud between Musk and Trump reached boiling point after Musk blasted the president’s multi-trillion-dollar tax-and-spend bill. In response, Trump warned he might cancel Tesla and SpaceX’s government contracts to cut the deficit.
Musk shot back, threatening to begin decommissioning SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft which is a vital link in NASA’s space missions.
Former Trump aide Steve Bannon took things further, urging the president to seize SpaceX using national security laws and punish Musk for disloyalty.
Bannon called Musk a tech oligarch trying to “hijack the republic.”
Adding fuel to the theory is the involvement of Curtis Yarvin, a coder-turned-philosopher whose “Dark Enlightenment” ideas have reportedly influenced Silicon Valley’s elite.
Writing under the name Mencius Moldbug, Yarvin advocates for replacing democracy with a monarch-like CEO government, where billionaires call the shots, elections vanish, and the bureaucracy is gutted, according to the report by the UK-based Daily Mail.
The overlap between these views and Musk’s real-world role in the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is striking. Under DOGE, more than 2.5 lakh government jobs have already been axed since Trump returned to power in January.
Meanwhile, JD Vance, who some believe is the group’s chosen successor to Trump, continued defending the president, calling recent attacks “corporate media lies”.
He said Trump was far more disciplined than critics claim, and that the gap between perception and reality is “maybe the single biggest disconnect”.
Shankhyaneel Sarkar is a senior subeditor at News18. He covers international affairs, where he focuses on breaking news to in-depth analyses. He has over five years of experience during which he has covered sev…Read More
Shankhyaneel Sarkar is a senior subeditor at News18. He covers international affairs, where he focuses on breaking news to in-depth analyses. He has over five years of experience during which he has covered sev… Read More
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Washington D.C., United States of America (USA)
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