Elon enters the circus

The protector president paced astir the shape aft his speech, sunglasses on, rima stiff successful a grin, raising a chainsaw overhead to the delight of an adoring crowd arsenic a ample rectangular canvas made its measurement from the backmost of the assemblage toward him. He grabbed the painting, visibly thrilled. On the canvas, arsenic onstage, he was the focal point. Beams of ray emanated from his head, which the creator had superimposed complete scenes from the world his real-world counterpart had promised to build: an astronaut surveying a barren reddish planet, a futuristic civilization complete pinch flying cars. In the painting, he wore a suit and tie. His real-world attire was much casual: a achromatic blazer complete a novelty T-shirt that publication “I’m not procrastinating, I’m doing broadside quests,” a golden chain, his signature “dark MAGA” hat, and the aforementioned sunglasses. In the painting, he was triumphant. Onstage astatine the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), however, Elon Musk had appeared incoherent. Fifteen aliases truthful minutes into the interview, a newsman successful the media pit turned to maine and mimed smoking a joint, mouthing, “Is he high?”

Still, the assemblage was successful his thrall. At 1 point, erstwhile each Musk could negociate to opportunity was “Yeah, um. So. I mean, really,” personification successful the crowd shouted, “We emotion you!” They gave him a opinionated ovation earlier he said and different after.

CPAC, arsenic it’s advertised, is an yearly show of right-wing unity, an juncture that brings together elected officials and lobbyists, influencers and their legions of adoring fans, each nether the mantle of a harmonious blimpish movement. It makes sense, then, that Musk would beryllium welcomed into the ever-expanding MAGA coalition, particularly arsenic CPAC’s attendance dwindles. But this year, a large convention and lineup of afterparties couldn’t hide the soul conflicts of the movement: a tech oligarch astatine the helm of a “populist revolution,” a man who has each but abandoned astir of his children, being praised during a sheet connected CPAC’s staunch “pro-family” stance; the insular America-first rhetoric and the expanding beingness of an “international CPAC movement” that pads retired the thinning crowds. This is, successful immoderate ways, the logical conclusion of the activity that began successful Trump Tower a decade ago, erstwhile the early president descended a gilded escalator successful his namesake building and vowed to conflict for the communal man. President Donald Trump’s supporters person agelong been consenting to look past contradictions and dissonance — but immoderate diehards are opening to consciousness the strain.

Hours earlier Musk’s non-speech, I had interviewed the creator who painted the image of Musk, a man named Seth Leibowitz. “It needs an update. It’s been sitting successful a container for a mates years,” Leibowitz said of the painting, which he had completed successful 2019. “He’s much applicable now, but actually, I’m acrophobic of him being a wolf successful sheep’s clothing.”

In what would go a moving taxable of the weekend, Leibowitz expressed some his fears of Musk’s transhumanism — the usage of exertion to heighten quality abilities — arsenic good arsenic support for the tech mogul’s existent domiciled successful Washington. Musk’s short-term plans to dismantle the national bureaucracy, embodied successful the Department of Government Efficiency, aliases DOGE, are successful keeping pinch long-standing blimpish goals. But Musk’s semipermanent designs to create a brood of super-babies and upload his consciousness into the unreality don’t precisely beryllium good pinch the belief right.

Leibowitz mentioned Neuralink, past told maine astir a Spanish professor from the 1950s who erstwhile stopped a bull from charging him by neuralizing its brain. “They person nanobiosensors successful our bodies correct now,” Leibowitz told me. “They don’t request to put a spot successful your encephalon to show our encephalon activity.” Despite his fears, Leibowitz had precocious hopes for DOGE — “We request much transparency,” he said — though he remained wary of Musk’s broader governmental aspirations. “I’m hoping that Elon doesn’t deliberation he tin wiggle his measurement successful and someday beryllium the adjacent president of the world.”

My brushwood pinch Leibowitz was small much than an accident. I ran into him successful the lobby of the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, the yearly location of CPAC, while seeking a little infinitesimal of respite from the day’s festivities successful the shape of barbecue pinch immoderate young members of the Log Cabin Republicans. (On my measurement retired the sliding solid doors, I walked past Laura Loomer, the right-wing provocateur who has go a adjacent state of Trump.) Over Bloody Marys, I told the mini group astir my brushwood pinch the Musk-skeptical creator who had nevertheless painted his portrait, an image that embodied the contradictions of the burgeoning tech-right alliance.

“These are not bully people. They’re weird,” Logan Sajdowitz, a 22-year-old from Wisconsin, said of Silicon Valley’s recently blimpish billionaires. “And I’m not a immense instrumentality of the trad-cons, but astatine slightest they person a coherent ideology. The tech correct is conscionable fucking… I don’t know.” Sajdowitz admitted his position is different for this crowd. “I should beryllium astatine Principles First correct now,” he continued, referring to the staid “Never Trump” conference taking spot crossed the stream the aforesaid weekend.

As Sajdowitz and I discussed whether Musk’s DOGE was hurtling toward a full-blown law crisis, a brace of British men connected the different broadside of the array silently passed a banana-flavored vape backmost and forth. Before I left, 1 of them showed maine a video of him and Liz Truss, the short-lived premier curate of the United Kingdom who has go a CPAC fixture, dancing together astatine a cheery bar. They had missed Truss’ speech, but we each agreed we’d tune successful for Musk’s, which had been announced earlier that time by Mercedes Schlapp, woman of the embattled CPAC chair, Matt Schlapp.

“We person a very typical impermanent who’s going to beryllium present during the conference,” Mercedes said that morning, minutes earlier Vice President JD Vance was expected to return the stage. “Kind of like, a tech titan, maybe…” — strange, I thought, not the first words I’d usage to picture Vance, though he does travel from a task superior background — “…responsible for DOGE,” she teased. “Elon Musk will beryllium present connected the CPAC stage!”

But first, it was Vance’s turn. The crowd erupted successful a “USA! USA!” chant earlier he had a chance to speak. His speech pinch the woman Schlapp mostly focused connected migration and the border, which he described arsenic the root of each our societal ills, including authorities overspending. Kicking disconnected what would go a celebrated refrain complete the people of the weekend, Vance praised Musk’s cost-cutting efforts astatine DOGE. “Why are we spending money connected progressive modern creation projects centered astir toilets successful Afghanistan?” Vance asked the incredulous audience. (Other speakers utilized the aforesaid Mad Libs-esque construction: [woke] [project] successful [foreign country]. For Megyn Kelly, who dedicated a important information of her 20-minute reside to discussing Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, it was trans operas successful Colombia; Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) chastised the authorities for sending “millions of dollars to Guatemala for activity changes.” Attorney General Pam Bondi kept it vague, alleging that USAID money was “likely going to violent organizations.”) “Let’s move disconnected the spigot and walk the American people’s taxation money connected the American people’s priorities,” Vance declared, to thunderous applause.

The room emptied retired aft Vance spoke. The CPAC crowd, it seemed, wasn’t willing successful proceeding Bitcoin evangelist Michael Saylor explicate why cryptocurrency is “inherently conservative.” Trump had headlined the Bitcoin Conference successful Nashville, Tennessee, 7 months earlier, drafting MAGA diehards to what was erstwhile an manufacture event, but the inverse did not look to beryllium happening. Outside the main stage, connected “media row,” group lined up to get their pictures taken pinch My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, while the Open Source AI Foundation’s array grounded to pull overmuch interest. Eventually I, too, sewage saturated of Saylor’s reside and went downstairs to drawback a muffin. In statement astatine the cafe, I overheard a precocious liberated January 6th captive I’d met the nighttime earlier declare personification had stabbed him while he was locked up. I besides ran into Joe Allen, the tech analogous for Steve Bannon’s War Room, who offered to present maine to the large feline himself.

Allen, a tech skeptic who had antecedently told maine that Musk and Peter Thiel “represent an ideology that is fundamentally dispute to quality life,” walked maine complete to the group wherever Bannon was signaling his show, but it was clear I wouldn’t beryllium getting an question and reply anytime soon. Bannon sewage mobbed by supporters who started singing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” arsenic soon arsenic the cameras stopped rolling.

On my measurement backmost to the main stage, I ran into a erstwhile groyper I’d met astatine past year’s CPAC who told maine he had gotten roped into collecting signatures for a petition calling for Trump to tally for a 3rd term. (According to a property merchandise issued by the Third Term Project, “extended activity tin beryllium important during times of nationalist situation and economical development.”) I sewage backmost to my spot arsenic Truss said the UK needs “Elon and his nerd service of Muskrats” to return a difficult look astatine the “British heavy state.” Foreign dignitaries, too, were location to salary fealty to some the de facto and the de jure presidents. Eduardo Bolsonaro, boy of the erstwhile Brazilian president, told the assemblage that a Brazilian national court’s “illegal clone news investigation” into Musk that led to X being temporarily banned successful the country should make america all, “I don’t know, possibly scared.”

A fewer hours aft the younger Bolsonaro urged CPAC attendees to take sides free reside astatine location and abroad, Schmitt, the Missouri senator, told Mike Davis — the president of the Article III Project who was in the moving to beryllium Trump’s lawyer general — that 60 Minutes, the CBS show, “ought to get sued for what they did to President Trump successful the interview.” Brendan Carr, the newly appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission, was expected to subordinate Schmitt and Davis to talk “The Takedown of Left Tech,” according to the CPAC agenda, but was inexplicably missing. There was plentifulness to talk astir without him, including imaginable antitrust challenges to large tech companies for illustration Facebook and Google, and Musk’s activity astatine DOGE. “The Democrats are losing their minds because of DOGE and these efforts to portion distant their power,” Schmitt said. “And they should! Because the group of this state elected 1 personification to tally the executive branch, and he gets to make decisions connected unit and policy.”

For a moment, it was unclear if he was referring to Trump aliases Musk.

When Trump first took agency 8 years ago, Musk was obscurity successful sight. The wide bogeyman of that era — for a small while, astatine slightest — was Steve Bannon, the executive chair of the far-right Breitbart News. The populist standard-bearer served arsenic Trump’s main strategist during those first 8 months of 2017, and he continues to wield powerfulness successful the extended MAGA universe, contempt nary longer being portion of Trump’s soul circle. (As portion of their falling-out, Bannon received the Trumpian appellation “Sloppy Steve” successful 2018.) Bannon now hosts Steve Bannon’s War Room, a regular show distributed via the right-wing cablegram transmission Real America’s Voice.

In this 2nd Trump administration, Bannon, alternatively than being the epicenter of power, is alternatively riling up Trump’s guidelines from the sidelines and channeling his everyman ire toward Trump’s caller allies, the Silicon Valley elites — the “oligarchs,” arsenic Bannon calls them — who, he claims, are trying to bargain Trump’s favour pinch money. This cronyism sits sick pinch him; it is astatine likelihood pinch the basal ideology that Bannon espouses. Bannon is anti-immigration, ineligible aliases otherwise; he supports trust-busting and opposes the neoliberal order. His worldview, successful different words, cannot beryllium reconciled pinch that of moreover the astir right-wing Silicon Valley task capitalist aliases CEO — he is astatine odds, even, pinch Musk, Trump’s caller right-hand man. Indeed, little than a week anterior to CPAC, Bannon called the Tesla CEO a “parasitic forbidden immigrant.” I wanted to understand what Bannon made of Trump’s newfound support among the Silicon Valley elite, whether tech moguls are utilizing Trump for his powerfulness aliases he’s utilizing them for their money, aliases each of the above. More than anything, I wanted to cognize what the MAGA base, the white-haired boomers successful sequined jackets and College Republicans successful rumpled suits, made of the evident rift betwixt 2 of Trump’s astir outspoken supporters.

The masses, it seems, don’t spot the powerfulness struggle happening, and those who do don’t really deliberation it matters. Most of the CPAC attendees I said to saw Elon not arsenic a usurper of statesmanlike powerfulness but an enforcer of it. The sentiment, expressed clip and clip again, was that Musk useful for Trump and Trump useful for us, the American people. DOGE, they told me, is astir eliminating discarded and fraud successful the authorities — it’s astir ensuring that Americans’ taxation dollars are spent astatine home, not connected queer puppet shows successful Iraq.

Even Bannon, intelligibly knowing his audience, praised DOGE successful his ain CPAC speech, which came instantly aft the chainsaw incident. “How did I tie the paper to travel Elon Musk?” Bannon quipped. “You bring retired the world’s richest man, Superman, and I’m expected to travel it? Come on, man!” The assemblage was conscionable arsenic enraptured by Bannon arsenic they had been by Musk, but the property conception had already emptied out.

Now that Trump was successful office, Bannon said, “Every time is Christmas day.” Musk, he claimed, had uncovered much than $55 cardinal of waste, fraud, and abuse, and it was each being done successful the sanction of the group successful this room, “the champion of the American people.” But they could not go complacent, not moreover successful victory. They needed to take sides their gains. “Are you prepared to conflict for Trump?” Bannon asked the audience. “Are you prepared to conflict for this republic? Are you prepared to conflict for this country?” They responded by chanting the words Trump yelled aft nearly being assassinated successful Pennsylvania: fight, fight, fight.

Before stepping offstage, Bannon raised his correct arm, ramrod straight, into the air, a mobility that the mean personification successful 2025 would place arsenic a Nazi salute. As pinch Musk’s alleged “Roman salute” in January, the gesticulation instantly kicked disconnected the back-and-forth volley complete what to telephone it. Bannon denied immoderate untoward behavior. “I do that each the time,” Bannon told NBC News. “I activity to my crowd, because it’s each astir them.” But it was each excessively overmuch moreover for a French far-right politician, who canceled his CPAC speech successful protestation of the “gesture alluding to Nazi ideology.”

The basking summons Thursday nighttime was Bannon’s statement astatine Butterworth’s, a French bistro successful Capitol Hill that has go a MAGAworld hub since opening past October. At the edifice barroom aft Bannon’s speech, I encountered the zoomer Nazis I’d met astatine the convention last year, drinking achromatic Russians retired of disposable h2o bottles and scrolling done Instagram. The older members of the group had worked the doorway astatine Bannon’s CPAC 2024 afterparty. This year, they weren’t connected the list. As I waited for my Uber, I heard a female kick that she hadn’t been invited; a friend told her not to worry, she’d beryllium fine. The statement to get into the statement was spilling retired the doorway and astir the artifact erstwhile I pulled up to Butterworth’s astir 7:30, conscionable 30 minutes aft the festivities had begun. Raheem Kassam, an investor successful the edifice and the erstwhile editor-in-chief of Breitbart News UK, distributed manus warmers to the shivering masses and tried to extremity group from sneaking successful done the broadside door.

Inside, the edifice was truthful packed I had a difficult clip moving done the crowd. The unfastened barroom had group acting out: a female seized a microphone and started an impromptu karaoke convention to the chagrin of the different partygoers; I spotted a young man sitting successful a area booth, a blonde female perched connected his lap. When they sewage up, her lipstick was smeared. It wasn’t moreover 9PM. Bannon’s remarks that nighttime were brief. After he spoke, he ceded the shape to Lady Nogrady, a right-wing singer-slash-microinfluencer, who performed her opus “Modern Day Holy War.” The man opinionated adjacent to maine screamed on to each word.

Overwhelmed by the sheer density of the crowd, I went extracurricular for immoderate caller air. Two nuns followed soon thereafter, squeezing past the throng of bodies successful the restaurant. One of them said she was from “Commiefornia.”

The normal halfway was quiet the adjacent morning; astir people, I assumed, were sleeping disconnected their hangovers. But the crowds hardly grew arsenic the time progressed. Reporters who had been covering CPAC since the Obama management told maine this was the smallest gathering they’d ever seen. The debased turnout whitethorn person been owed to the day’s agenda: Friday’s lineup featured programming from CPAC Japan, CPAC Australia, CPAC Korea, CPAC Hungary, and CPAC Israel; panels connected the Iranian atomic threat and alleged predetermination fraud successful South Korea; and speeches by a Mexican character and the premier curate of Slovakia.

While these world leaders addressed mini audiences, the American masses gathered successful the hallway, eager to drawback a glimpse of their favourite MAGAworld figures. CPAC, I realized, is benignant of for illustration a right-wing Disneyland, isolated from alternatively of being photographed pinch Mickey Mouse, group were lining up to return selfies pinch the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden, aliases pinch Steven Sund, the main of the Capitol Police during the January 6th insurrection who was signing copies of his book, Courage Under Fire: Under Siege and Outnumbered 58 to 1 connected January 6, at the Smith & Wesson booth.

I was confused arsenic to why Sund, whose book promises to show “the afloat truth astir what happened connected January 6th,” would beryllium invited astatine the aforesaid convention that had held a vigil for the J6ers a twelvemonth anterior and ostensibly welcomed the liberated prisoners astatine this year’s event. CPAC had kicked retired immoderate J6ers connected Friday for reasons that stay unclear; rumor was that, aft being ousted, immoderate of them went to the barroom crossed the thoroughfare from the normal center, wherever they spent the day riding a mechanical bull. In immoderate case, they were reinstated earlier the weekend’s end. On Saturday, I ran into Brandon Fellows, a J6er who was stepping astir the normal halfway successful a clone Immigration and Customs Enforcement jacket, who told maine he bought it connected Amazon for $29.99 and utilized it to “scare illegals.”

Sund, it appeared, was a repentant cop: connected Friday, he said connected a sheet astir the “J6 Sham.” While Sund signed his books for MAGAworld, his erstwhile colleague, Michael Fanone — possibly champion known for testifying successful the House’s January 6th investigation — made his ain quality astatine the Principles First acme crossed the river. There, Fanone was accosted by J6er and erstwhile Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio successful the halls of the venue. The convention for Never Trump conservatives was evacuated Sunday aft the edifice hosting it received a explosive threat from personification claiming to beryllium Tarrio, who said 4 tube bombs would detonate “as soon arsenic the adjacent doorway opens” successful grant of “the J6 hostages precocious released by Emperor Trump.”

Friday night, while the grown-ups attended the Ronald Reagan Dinner, the DC Young Republicans hosted a mixer successful the edifice lobby bar. A lone man danced to “YMCA,” a MAGAworld favorite, arsenic the different members of his array looked on. I decided to spell to furniture early successful mentation for Trump’s “surprise” reside the adjacent day. The president’s quality hadn’t been announced, but the Secret Service beingness had been, which was each the accusation anyone needed. The adjacent morning, connected the different broadside of the information line, I ran into James O’Keefe’s assistant, who told maine he’d stayed retired until 4AM partying pinch the CPAC Australia crew. He asked if I’d seen the guys who were handing retired flyers for a statement purportedly being hosted by Bannon and O’Keefe, the Project Veritas laminitis whose undercover activists covertly movie members of the alleged “deep state.”

The adjunct told maine he had confronted the hucksters, who were charging an $80 screen for their statement astatine Tom’s Watch Bar. O’Keefe, he told maine — not for the first clip that play — would beryllium DJing the invite-only DOGE appreciation party, and the database would beryllium tight. As we spoke, he pointed retired the window, gesturing toward what appeared to beryllium Trump’s motorcade arsenic it sped down the parkway and toward us.

Saturday’s lineup was stacked, each speaker seemingly chosen to drum up excitement for the 47th president. Javier Milei, the austerity-loving president of Argentina who’d handed Musk the chainsaw 2 days earlier, returned for an encore. The crowd responded enthusiastically, deterred neither by the cryptocurrency “rug pull” scandal Milei is facing backmost location nor by the truth that his reside was wholly successful Spanish. (Fortunately, location were subtitles.) Stephen Miller, the White House advisor who had been the brains down galore of Trump’s first-term migration policies, vowed to get “illegals” retired of the state and DEI retired of our schools. Border czar Tom Homan recovered himself swarmed by supporters successful the hallway, 1 of whom chanted “families tin beryllium deported together” arsenic passersby lined up to person their image taken pinch the man orchestrating Trump’s wide deportations. As I looked for an exit, I was intercepted by a man who asked if this was my first CPAC and boasted astir the VIP tickets he’d snagged for past year’s Turning Point USA conference, the yearly young blimpish gathering hosted by Charlie Kirk, earlier asking if I was acquainted pinch Elon’s activity astatine DOGE.

Downstairs, Joe Allen, the War Room tech correspondent, told maine this whitethorn beryllium my past chance to question and reply Bannon. As we waited for War Room to decorativeness filming, Allen and I returned to our chat of whether Bannon-style populism was incompatible pinch Musk and the remainder of the tech-right.

The CPAC attendees I had interviewed surely didn’t deliberation so. Oscar Flores, a Republican campaigner for a section predetermination successful his autochthonal San Francisco, told maine it was for illustration 2 guys who “will get successful a barroom fight, and soon thereafter, they’ll commencement sharing beers and it’s each good and dandy.” His friend, a existent property supplier who declined to beryllium named, said Musk would yet “bend the knee.” A female successful an oversized Trump mask, who I had spotted each play roaming astir the normal halfway pinch 2 likewise masked friends, told maine she was a instrumentality of Bannon and Musk alike. “It’s for illustration thing else, you don’t work together pinch each azygous point astir different person,” she told maine erstwhile I asked for her thoughts connected Bannon’s criticisms of Musk.

Allen was little sanguine. “The capacity for cognitive dissonance and to beryllium comfortable pinch it is seemingly limitless,” he told maine arsenic we waited for Bannon. “What is really striking astir Musk and galore successful the Republican activity is really nakedly galore of them grounds their elevation — aliases their aloofness — from the bully and evil of the masses. It’s unsettling, because there’s not really been overmuch of a revolt against it.” Even immoderate connected the Bannonite “populist nationalist” right, he said, are disquieted by Musk’s behaviour and beliefs but “accept it arsenic a politically expedient advantage for now, I conjecture nether the presumption that it tin beryllium reversed, aliases that Musk tin beryllium saved, aliases that the designs of Musk and the different accelerationists that are applying truthful overmuch unit and power connected the Trump management tin beryllium avoided down the road.”

But Allen himself wasn’t truthful sure. “It’s going to beryllium a barren godforsaken connected the different broadside of that mirage,” he said, earlier stepping maine complete to the War Room stage. When we arrived, Bannon was erstwhile again surrounded by fans who had lined up to person his blessing. After proceeding I had questions for him astir the tech-MAGA coalition, Bannon promised to speak to maine arsenic soon arsenic the meet and shake hands was over. While we waited, Allen and I ambled complete to a carnival crippled sponsored by Real America’s Voice, wherever he handed maine a artifact front and arrow and told maine to springiness it a try. I grounded to deed the shot floating successful beforehand of “forever wars.” After a fewer mendacious starts, he deed “DEI” and “illegal immigration” successful a azygous shot.

My question and reply pinch Bannon began earlier I knew it, pinch Bannon telling me, “Your thesis is flawed,” though I hadn’t yet asked a azygous question. (He had intelligibly taken rumor pinch my mention of the “tech-MAGA coalition.”)

“This is simply a populist nationalist movement. When you get the tech boys successful — and this is my basal disagreement pinch them — they’re not populist and they’re not nationalist.” Individual tech bros, he continued, could hop connected the Trump train if they really believed successful it, “but the business is simply a globalist business. They deliberation of it globally,” he told me. (In Bannonworld, globalism is not a bully thing.) Bannon said he understood the request to build a “big coalition” and called himself a leader successful the effort to bring Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s supporters into MAGA’s expanding tent.

Bannon suggested that the tech titans who threw their support — and money — down Trump’s inauguration were opportunists whose authorities shifted pinch the wind. “They were each progressive Democrats until 11 pm, Eastern Standard Time connected the 5th of November,” he said. “Once it was evident that Trump won, each of a abrupt they became MAGA.” In reality, he claimed, the Silicon Valley elite are “techno-feudalists” whose companies should beryllium surgery up. “I support Lina Khan, she’s like, my hero,” Bannon said of the erstwhile Federal Trade Commission chair, who’d brought antitrust suits against Google and Microsoft. (Musk has publicly attacked Khan connected X.) And Trump, Bannon claimed, has stocked the FTC pinch “neo-Brandeisians,” antitrust champions who would dismantle the tech oligarchy.

“We want to break up Google. We want to break up Facebook. We want to break up Twitter. We deliberation they’re excessively powerful and excessively centralized,” Bannon said. “Their full conception is not capitalism. Their conception is, alternatively of markets and profits, it’s integer platforms, and they’re rent-seekers. They person full control, and they look astatine group arsenic integer serfs.” Silicon Valley’s tech elite, he continued, made their money from task capitalists who redistributed wealthiness upward by raiding Americans’ pension funds; erstwhile their slope failed, they demanded that the authorities bail them out.

And what astir Musk, the entity of his disapproval and recipient of multimillion-dollar authorities contracts? This was a “quite analyzable relationship,” Bannon said. “I disagree pinch him connected truthful overmuch that’s fundamental, nevertheless — and this is very important for group to understand — Elon backed our play. If Elon had not backed our play, the president still would person won, but it would’ve been a overmuch rockier road.”

Musk has 2 “tactical atomic weapons successful modern politics” successful the shape of “unlimited money and a media level that he can, being a ‘free reside absolutist,’ push what he wants to push and unopen down what he wants to unopen down,” Bannon told me. And isn’t it amended to person a feline for illustration that connected your side? “Elon wrote $50 cardinal each period for 5 months. That’s ne'er happened earlier successful American history,” Bannon said. “When they talk astir immense donors — [George] Soros connected the left, the Adelsons aliases the Mercers connected the correct — these group are penning $100 million, $150 cardinal checks, that’s complete a cycle. He wrote it successful 5 months.” In different words, Musk’s exploitation of integer serfs mightiness beryllium bad, but astatine slightest his money is going to thing good.

DOGE, Bannon said, is yet the manifestation of the “deconstruction of the administrative state,” a word Bannon himself coined during the first Trump term. The measurement he sees it, DOGE is an instrumentality of populist nationalism, an supplier of alteration for the world Bannon wants to build.

Nevertheless, he’s still wary. “He’s, look, he’s a unit of nature,” Bannon told me. But he’s besides “the starring transhumanist successful the country.” Musk and different transhumanists, Bannon told me, are investing successful technologies that will widen the spread betwixt the rich | and poor: “advanced spot design, quantum computing, CRISPR, cistron splicing.” Eventually the gaps betwixt rich | and mediocre will spell beyond the material, penetrating our familial makeup. There’s thing little populist than that.

“He swears he’s a populist nationalist,” Bannon said of Musk. “I want to spot that. I do think, wrong of that madness, I deliberation there’s thing that tin beryllium honed for good.”

These conflicts and contradictions, heightened arsenic they are, matter small to the mean CPAC attendee. Trump is their guy, Bannon is their guy, and now Musk is, too. They judge everyone successful MAGAworld is moving toward a shared goal: the flourishing of the American group and the vanquishing of each enemies, overseas and domestic. During her speech pinch Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), which doubled arsenic a taping of an section of his podcast — astatine 1 constituent he asked everyone successful the assemblage to subscribe — Attorney General Pam Bondi described the Trump management arsenic a large group of friends moving together for the communal good. From the extracurricular looking in, it seems much for illustration a royal tribunal afloat of rival factions helmed by scheming viziers vying for the emperor’s favor. Still, they’re undoubtedly much agreed than their opposition.

Trump is still the king; everyone successful his orbit recognizes him arsenic the root of their ain power. But arsenic pinch the emperors of aged who bestowed excessively overmuch attraction connected an overbearing tribunal favorite, a protector is falling complete his reign. In an different move, Trump’s sanction wasn’t included connected the database of speakers, though everyone knew he’d beryllium there. (Trump was expected to speak astatine CPAC 2016 but pulled out astatine the past minute.) I wondered if he wanted his quality to beryllium a astonishment for illustration Elon’s had been, if the play for secrecy was suggestive of a lingering insecurity that Musk was encroaching connected the president’s spotlight. When Trump took the stage, the crowd went wild, arsenic it ever does, but it was still undeniable that Elon had stolen the show.

In the edifice lobby that evening, aft Trump’s “surprise” reside and the day prayer, I overheard group strategizing astir really to get into the DOGE appreciation statement if they weren’t connected the list. An RSVP nexus was circulating successful DMs and group chats earlier abruptly going dead. All anyone could opportunity for definite is that it was being hosted by Sovereign House — the highly online, far-right-adjacent New York City taste arena abstraction — astatine a “private residence.” But lists, I had been told the nighttime of the Bannon party, are malleable. (“I’m waiting for my feline to travel through,” personification told me.) Anyone who was anyone would beryllium astatine the DOGE party, arsenic would those strangers and hangers-on who had managed to person the keepers of the database that they were personification worthy knowing. Those who couldn’t get connected the database and past security, however, would find themselves paying $80 to get into Tom’s Watch Bar, which 1 attendee told maine ended up being “just for illustration the Bannon statement past year, isolated from little Nazis” and not arsenic galore large names.

That night, a mini group of protesters gathered extracurricular the Capitol Hill condo building wherever the DOGE appreciation statement was taking place, an aged schoolhouse that had been converted into lofts by Brock Pierce, a kid prima turned crypto mogul. “You’re each Nazis,” 1 female screamed astatine attendees done a megaphone. All the factionalism, the infighting, the irreconcilable ideological contradictions, didn’t matter from the outside. And the partygoers — agreed by corporate alleviation and smugness astir getting connected the exclusive induce database — could besides disregard the differences among themselves, particularly since location was an unfastened bar.