Billionaire Elon Musk joined GOP nominee Donald Trump on Saturday at his second rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and promptly made reference to an alt-right conspiracy movement called “Dark MAGA.”
“As you can see, I’m not just MAGA, I’m Dark MAGA,” said the Tesla CEO, who wore a blacked-out Make America Great Again hat.
Dark MAGA began popping up on X as a meme somewhere around 2022, reported Newsweek. The movement calls for the return of Trump to the White House at all cost, asserting that Trump should be authoritarian and ruthless in his pursuit of power. Supporters of the movement often share black and blue colored images of Trump’s usual MAGA slogans and merch as a nod to its existence, along with dystopian images of America that appear to be inspired by the Terminator movie franchise.
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So far, Trump has not acknowledged or supported the message behind the meme.
After Musk made the comment, #DarkMAGA started trending on X with tens of thousands of posts under the hashtag. However, many X commentators seemed to jump on the trending topic as an opportunity to skewer Musk’s full-on embrace of MAGA—which included awkward jumping and dancing as he came on stage.
The Tesla CEO could be seen in mid-air as Trump looked on with a bewildered expression.
“Dark MAGA.… More like #DorkMAGA,” wrote one social media commentator on X.
Another commentator added, “Elon’s girlfriend is ‘Dark MAGA’ too. She goes to different school.”
Another commentator pointed out that Musk’s “Dark MAGA” moment seemed to be lifted from President Joe Biden’s “Dark Brandon” meme campaign.
“Elon’s big stroke of genius (Dark Maga) is just another meme he stole,” wrote X user @ryanharpergray. “This time from the Biden social media team. Dudes literally the most unoriginal person alive.”
Biden’s camp embraced “Dark Brandon” as an “alter ego” around 2022 after “Let’s go, Brandon” became a way for conservatives to insult the sitting president when the chant was infamously misheard at a NASCAR race.
Before leaving the stage, Musk urged the crowd to “drag” people to vote. Because if they don’t, “This will be the last election. That’s my prediction.”
