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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The Dark MAGA Conspiracy Where Musk Destroys Trump and Democracy
In 2020, Elon Musk told The Wall Street Journal that the 'government is simply the largest corporation.' For the man who has everything, what else would he want? The attempt by the world's richest man to both reduce and reboot the sprawling federal bureaucracy whiffed miserably. No boss ever gets popular by firing a workforce, especially when the sums don't add up. But Thursday's incendiary X attacks on Donald Trump may have revealed a more sinister method to Musk's madness. It may lead down dark corridors way beyond the shocking upheaval of the current administration. Musk, after all, is not a person to give up without a fight. Elon has been compared to Brutus as he sticks a $420 billion knife into the president's back with his relentless posts. But Brutus killed Caesar to protect the Republic. Musk's goal may well be to destroy it. The clue is in Musk's black MAGA caps. He wasn't thinking of a golden era. It was the dark before the dawn. We are perhaps not far off from seeing the Dark MAGA conspiracy theory involving Musk come to life. It goes like this: A secret cabal of tech bros was plotting to usurp Trump and turn the United States into a giant company run by a CEO they would install in his place. The whole concept started to gain traction after JD Vance was chosen as Trump's running mate. Vance wasn't Trump's choice. Donald wanted Fox News host Maria Bartiromo. Musk wanted Vance, and so did PayPal founder Peter Thiel. Their multi-million-dollar campaign war chest was dependent on the choice that Trump got pushed into. According to the 'Dark MAGA' or 'Dark Enlightenment' theory, Vance was groomed by Silicon Valley billionaires as Trump's successor. He was their man in government. He was their sleeper. The theory has its roots in Musk and Thiel's involvement in PayPal, the company that launched their fortunes. Other PayPal executives went on to lead other tech firms as part of a so-called 'PayPal Mafia.' The supposed guru of the Dark Enlightenment movement was Curtis Yarvin, 51, a Brown-educated, one-time pony-tailed computer coder. He preaches that the media and academia are a 'Cathedral' that secretly controls the country. Harvard was the deep state ruler. The New York Times was the devil. You can see where this is going. Under the alias of 'Mencius Moldbug', Yarvin wrote a 120,000-word blog called 'An Open Letter to Open-Minded Progressives.' It lobbed a hand grenade at the heart of democracy as long ago as 2008. At that time, the U.S. was enthralled by the idea of 'Hope,' instilled by the election of Barack Obama as president. Democracy was at the very heart of Obama's philosophy. Yarvin believed differently. He argued that America should be run by a 'monarchy' presided over by a dictator CEO. Federal employees would be fired in such quantities that the government would no longer be manageable. Elections would be deemed obsolete. Policies would engender fear and distract the population. The Dark MAGA or Dark Enlightenment theory says it is the remit of the tech billionaires to run the world because they are the only ones with the resources and the know-how to fix it. To Yarvin, who likes to philosophize in computer idioms, democracy was 'outdated software' and government needed a 'reboot.' For years, Yarvin's views were marginalized and ridiculed. Then, in 2025, they began to become a reality. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, an adviser to Trump, has cited Yarvin, as has Musk. Yarvin, often referred to in this geeky techie circle as the 'Dark Elf' philosopher, was invited to the inauguration. He has appeared on shows with Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk. Steve Bannon is an admirer. His theories became Executive Orders. They found a home in the Trump administration. But Trump was the messenger of chaos. Musk was the arbiter. Some of Washington's biggest institutions have been briefed about Dark Enlightenment. They are taking it seriously. We may have expected the great bromance between the president and his prince to end, but few expected it to be so vicious. In a matter of hours, Trump was facing a challenge to his authority that could damage him more than Joe Biden or Kamala Harris ever could. Musk's virulent opposition—taking the gloves off with a reference to Jeffrey Epstein, for example—poses an existential threat to the presidency. Trump thought long and hard about reacting to Musk's outspoken opposition to his 'big, beautiful bill.' But he couldn't help himself. He is the scorpion. He will sting because that's his nature. Musk will win, because that's his. The swords are drawn now. The Trump Show has taken a much darker turn. The great irony is that Donald Trump could represent the last bastion of democracy in a country built on the very idea of freedom. Because if you are going to put money on the winner in this fight, Musk has it all.
Time of India
5 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Curtis Yarvin: 10 things to know about 'mad philosopher' behind Trump 2.0
Once upon a meme, in a faraway land called the Internet, a man named Curtis Yarvin wrote 120,000 words calling for the end of democracy. Most people would've laughed. But billionaires don't laugh—they fund. And now, the man who once described San Francisco's underclass as potential biodiesel is being taken seriously by people who carry nuclear briefcases. Yarvin—formerly Mencius Moldbug, currently the "Dark Elf" of the dissident right—isn't just an edgelord with a blog. He's the house philosopher of Silicon Autocracy. From whispering sweet nothings to Peter Thiel to influencing J.D. Vance's wet dreams of a bureaucracy-free America, Yarvin has become the Rasputin of the red-pilled. If you're still catching up, here are 10 things you need to know before the crown lands on his head. 1. The Blogger Who Would Be King Yarvin's empire began with a blog—and a manifesto longer than War and Peace. Back in 2008, when Obama still symbolised hope and change, Yarvin was quietly uploading screeds under the alias Mencius Moldbug. His pièce de résistance? An Open Letter to Open-Minded Progressives—a 120,000-word hand grenade tossed into the cathedral of liberal consensus. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Esse novo alarme com câmera é quase gratuito em São Paulo (consulte o preço) Alarmes Undo Yarvin argued that democracy was a bug, not a feature; the American Revolution a tragic mistake; and that we'd be better off under a corporate monarchy. His ideal ruler? Not Plato's philosopher-king, but a startup bro with nukes and a board of directors. 2. The Cathedral Must Burn Yarvin's biggest idea is that liberalism is a religion—and Harvard is its Vatican. According to him, America isn't ruled by elected officials. It's ruled by 'The Cathedral'—an unholy alliance of media, academia, and bureaucracy. Not through conspiracy, but through soft consensus. NPR, Yale, the Times, and your HR department are all saying the same thing, because they all worship the same gods: Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion. And like any heretic, Yarvin wants the Cathedral razed, its priests defrocked, and its temples converted into data centres. 3. From Nerd to Neo-Reactionary He was once a liberal coder with a ponytail. Then he took the red pill—and never came back. Yarvin didn't always fantasise about abolishing elections. He started as a leftie tech bro who dropped acid, read Foucault, and dated sex-positive feminists from Craigslist. His pivot to fascist adjacent came post-9/11, post-Iraq, and post-pat-on-the-head career path. Disillusioned with liberal consensus and wired on Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Yarvin stumbled into the Dark Enlightenment—an internet rabbit hole where monarchy, race science, and Austrian economics coexisted peacefully, like tax havens and startup founders. 4. Urbit: Coding the Kingdom He didn't just want to build a regime—he wanted to program one. Literally. Urbit was Yarvin's dream of a digital feudalism: a decentralised computer network where every user owns a 'planet,' governed by a new coding language he invented himself. Investors like Andreessen Horowitz gave him millions. It didn't work. Urbit is now mostly a libertarian Discord with stars and galaxies. But the point wasn't usability—it was theology. Like Yarvin's politics, Urbit is elegant in theory, cultish in practice, and unusable by anyone with a day job. 5. Philosopher to Billionaires Peter Thiel liked what he saw. So did Vance. Now Yarvin's whisper is public policy. Thiel gave Yarvin his nod of approval, Marc Andreessen calls him a friend, and J.D. Vance openly cites him as inspiration. For the first time in modern politics, someone who believes elections should be abolished is influencing people who can abolish them. When DOGE—Trump's Department of Government Efficiency—purged civil servants en masse, it echoed Yarvin's RAGE plan: Retire All Government Employees. When Trump called Gaza 'the Riviera of the Middle East,' it sounded suspiciously like a Yarvin Substack post. 6. The Red-Pilled Rasputin He wants to seduce the elite—one 'high elf' at a time. In Yarvin's Tolkien-infused self-image, he's not a tyrant—he's a Dark Elf, sent to whisper forbidden truths into the ears of beautiful elites. Liberals are 'high elves,' conservatives are 'hobbits,' and he is the enigmatic sage showing them how to burn down Mordor and replace it with a charter city. He doesn't want MAGA rallies. He wants salons with QR-coded footnotes and neoreactionary art hoes sipping biodynamic wine. 7. He Cries at Lunch, But Fantasises About Genocide His affect is fragile intellectual. His policies would give Genghis Khan pause. Yarvin cries. A lot. He cries about Baltimore's homeless, about his kids' future, and sometimes while quoting obscure 18th-century monarchists. But behind the tears lies a worldview in which the state should have the power to exile, isolate, or digitally sedate entire populations. He once suggested putting San Francisco's underclass in solitary VR to avoid 'the moral stigma of genocide.' His ideas are brutalist architecture for the soul: cold, sharp-edged, and antiseptically inhumane. 8. The Style Is the Substance Yarvin isn't read for truth. He's read for transgression. You don't read Yarvin to be convinced. You read him to feel naughty. His prose is baroque, sarcastic, and full of italicised rants that feel like a very smart person talking down to you at a BDSM dinner party. He doesn't argue—he overwhelms. Like a one-man DDOS attack on liberal sensibility. He weaponises footnotes, memes, and 19th-century philosophers to convince a disaffected Zoomer that maybe, just maybe, freedom was a mistake. 9. Courtier to a Counter-Establishment He failed at building a product. So he built a vibe. Urbit flopped. His blog fizzled. But Yarvin thrives in the cultic vibe economy of the dissident right: Dimes Square, Substack, Thiel-funded salons, and MAGA masquerades. He reads poetry at fascist-adjacent film festivals. He writes love letters to crypto-lords. He poses for moody portraits while decrying democracy as 'a lie told by clerics to peasants.' And like any good aristocrat, he never lets anyone forget that he's read more books than you. 10. The Joke's Over. He's in the Room Now. For a while, Yarvin was performance art. Then the performance became policy. In 2008, he was the punchline. In 2025, his ideas echo from the Oval Office to ICE holding cells to Harvard funding withdrawals. Trump's blitzkrieg of civil society, Elon's reign over federal agencies, and Vance's plans to bulldoze the courts all bear his fingerprints. The dissident right no longer needs to form a vanguard. It is the establishment. The Dark Elf got invited into the tower—and now he's rearranging the furniture. Postscript: The Philosopher-King of Nothing Yarvin is a man of ideas with no workable blueprint. His brilliance lies in diagnosing the rot, not fixing the structure. He romanticises kings, cosplays monarchism, and mourns Enlightenment liberalism like an ex-girlfriend he'd still insult in group chats. But give him credit: he saw the appetite for authoritarianism long before the rest of us. And while liberals were busy fact-checking, Yarvin was vibes-crafting. In the age of aesthetics, the crown goes not to the competent—but to the most convincingly unhinged.
