There is a conspiracy theory that the feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump is directly related to the AI provision in the Big Beautiful Bill. Looking back at Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance, Vance had no political experience before Thiel funded his ascension into the Senate after funding his entry into venture capitalism. Both Thiel and Musk urged Trump to select Vance as his VP candidate, and many believe this was to propel the so-called PayPal mafia into politics. The three men are also strongly associated with Curtis Yarvin (pictured above), the mastermind behind the Dark MAGA, Dark Enlightenment movement.
Take away the subsidies. It will only help Tesla.
Also, remove subsidies from all industries!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 16, 2024
Now, the media claims Musk turned on Trump because he is enraged by the EV tax cuts and subsidies. Yet, only six months ago, Musk was on Capitol Hill arguing for the abolishment of EV tax credits. “Take away the subsidies. It will only help Tesla. Also, remove subsidies from all industries!” Musk posted on his platform, X, on July 16, 2024. Musk had been offloading his White House duties in recent weeks and this over-the-top public feud seems fabricated.
In comes a potential conspiracy of “Dark MAGA” or “Dark Enlightenment.” Curtis Yarvin, a former programmer turned blogger, has long argued that American democracy is irreparable and should be replaced by a corporate-run monarchy led by Big Tech. Yarvin sees democracy not as civilization’s peak but as its degeneration—a system that obscures real power, which he claims is held by a “Cathedral” of media, academia, and bureaucracies that spread progressive ideologies. Yarvin calls his views “the Dark Enlightenment” or “neo-reaction” and firmly believes that the ideal government would resemble a feudal state or a tech corporation with centralized power.
Yarvin wrote “An Open Letter to Open-Minded Progressives” in 2008, which outlines his viewpoints. There is a ton of information he put forth on his substack, Grey Mirror. He believes that the tech elite should rule as they are the only ones intelligent enough to fix our failed society. The R.A.G.E. strategy is to ” Retire All Government Employees and replace them with private corporations under a complete dictatorship run by a “national CEO,” or what’s called a dictator. Yarvin describes his approach as “a humane alternative to genocide.”
CNN reported on Yarvin’s views, as did Politico, Time, the New York Times, The New Yorker, and every other big media agency. His views are not a conspiracy, but whether or not the tech elite has adopted these views is unknown; he has met with numerous members of the Trump Administration, including J.D. Vance. Yarvin has said he is “coaching” Theil, according to Time Magazine, and he even called him a “friend” in an interview with the Hoover Institution.
Yarvin was invited as a guest to Trump’s Coronation Ball in January 2025. In a follow-up interview with Politico, Yarvin stated that Trump’s first administration basically did not achieve anything for its supporters as opposed to its lobbyists. I’m not talking to the high strategic command or whatever, but just my impression from my connections among low- and mid-level people is that they’ve figured some things out.” He said that Congress, not the president, truly runs the nation. “Actually, if the White House didn’t exist, America would still work.”
He also said that the Federal Reserve should be under the executive branch:
“It’s clearly not part of the legislative branch, it’s clearly not part of the judicial branch, so it’s clearly part of the executive branch. And because the Fed actually controls the monetary system, I can order it to mint the trillion-dollar coin, or more to the point, I can basically order the Fed to buy assets. And because I can order the Fed to buy assets, I can order the Fed to buy notes issued by new institutions. That allows me to basically come face to face with two very clear facts. One is that the U.S. doesn’t really have an executive branch — it has a legislative branch, and it has an administrative branch, which is basically managed not by a monarchical president, but by an oligarchical Congress.”
Washington has been briefed on the Dark Enlightenment movement. The concept itself is not a conspiracy, as Yarvin and others do believe that a corporate-run dystopia is the future. Steve Bannon, as reported by the New York Times, explained that a number of tech elites were on the government’s watchlist:
“I asked him if he saw the same deep-level philosophical tension I did. “A tension?” he asked. “I would almost argue it’s an unbridgeable gap.” He named a roster of major figures on the tech right whom he saw as enemies: Mr. Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, the neomonarchist writer Mr. Yarvin and Balaji Srinivasan, an investor and technologist who promotes the idea of network states, new countries run on blockchain. Mr. Bannon accused the tech barons of promoting “technofeudalism” and “transhumanism” — bending human life into technologized and unnatural new forms. “This thing is all tied together,” he said. “They have a very well thought through philosophy and a very well thought through set of ideas, and they’re trying to implement that. And to me, everybody’s afraid, everybody’s scared because of their power.”
Before he entered the White House, Vance spoke favorably of Curtis Yarvin. “There’s this guy Curtis Yarvin, who has written about some of these things,” Vance said on a podcast in 2021, adding: “I think Trump is going to run again in 2024 [and] I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.”
Vance is certainly plugged in with the tech elite. Why did Elon Musk turn on Trump? I will avoid the more elaborate, far-fetched conspiracy theories (such as the Black Eye Club) and focus on what we know—the PayPal Mafia exists, as does the Dark Enlightenment theory. Musk is now calling for Trump to be impeached for a third time. Are the tech elite hoping to install Vance to the head position of POTUS? Time will tell the true plan, but this elaborate feud between Trump and Musk is too sudden not to raise suspicions.
