This is an adapted excerpt from the Oct. 6 episode of “Ayman.”

Two years ago, when billionaire Elon Musk bought what was once called Twitter, he vowed to keep it a nonbiased platform. In fact, that was his mission statement. Just days after purchasing the platform, Musk said, “For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally.”

It was a message he repeated frequently in interviews after purchasing the platform. “The goal of new Twitter is to be as fair and even-handed as possible. So not favoring any political ideology,” Musk told Fox News. But that quickly turned out to be a hollow sentiment. 

Instead, Musk used his immense influence on his own platform to tell his followers to vote for Republicans in the 2022 midterms. He also voiced his support for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the Republican presidential primary. 

But there was one prominent Republican whom Musk wasn’t a fan of: Donald Trump. Musk had previously said the former president was “too old” and that he should “hang up his hat & sail into the sunset.” 

As you can imagine, Trump didn’t take to that advice very well. In 2022, during a rally in Alaska, Trump addressed Musk’s comments, telling the crowd that Musk said he voted for Trump in 2016. 

Trump escalated the feud when he took to his own social media website, Truth Social, and claimed Musk came to the White House begging for his help on his projects. “I could have said, ‘drop to your knees and beg,’ and he would have done it,” Trump wrote in 2022. The former president would also go on to savagely mock Musk’s notoriously glitch-filled campaign launch for DeSantis on X.

But after the campaigns of Musk’s preferred candidates, DeSantis and later Vivek Ramaswamy, went down in flames, the billionaire planned a spring trip to Mar-a-Lago. In March, he met with Trump, who just so happened to be seeking a cash infusion to help his campaign. 

Recommended

Latest

Tesla shareholders approve new $1 trillion pay package for Musk

Ja’han Jones

Latest

White House holds going-away party for Elon Musk, even if little is really changing

Ja’han Jones

Afterward, Musk was asked about the meeting and if he’d donate money to Trump or then-candidate President Joe Biden. “While I’ll voice my opinion, I don’t want to put a thumb on the scale monetarily that is significant,” he told Don Lemon.

But by July, we learned Musk was already donating a sizable amount to a political group working to elect Trump. The day after that was reported, Musk publicly endorsed the former president following the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. Last month, Musk was asked about the impact of that endorsement and he did not respond to requests for comment.    

That brings us to Sunday, when Trump took to the podium again in Butler, nearly three months after that failed assassination attempt. Except this time, Trump was joined by his friend Musk — the same man who once proclaimed he would keep his social media platform politically neutral and the same man who once stated Trump wasn’t the right candidate to lead this country.

“As you can see, I’m not just MAGA. I’m dark MAGA,” Musk told the crowd. He then urged attendees to “fight,” and that Trump “must win to preserve the Constitution. He must win to preserve democracy in America.”

I’m not sure about “dark MAGA” — I much prefer comedian Mike Drucker’s interpretation: “dork MAGA.” But let’s take this moment in. What happened on that stage on Sunday in Butler will be the legacy of Elon Musk. The man once seen as a tech visionary, a real-life Tony Stark, will now be known as the man who traded in his reputation and his self-professed principles to become nothing more than a reactionary Lex Luthor in a MAGA hat.