Elon Musk’s New X Profile Completes His Evolution as Far-Right Troll

The world’s richest man has decided to change his digital look, opting to resurrect a dated image that the Anti-Defamation League flagged as a hate symbol in 2016.

Musk’s rebranded account began posting to his 209 million followers on X under the name Kekius Maximus on Tuesday, a blend between “kek”—a gaming variant of “LOL”—and Maximus Decimus Meridius, the main character in Ridley Scott’s 2000 action film Gladiator.

“Kekius Maximus will soon reach level 80 in hardcore PoE,” Musk posted.

Musk’s memeified alter ego also includes an archaic reference in the annals of internet history: Pepe the Frog, a character that has existed on internet message boards and blogs like 4chan and Tumblr since 2008. In 2015, Pepe was co-opted by the far right, and recent usage of the image in the U.S. has become synonymous with antisemites and white nationalists and harkens back to its presence at the forefront of violent movements like the Charlottesville riot and the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Under his new guise, Musk decided to attack Wikipedia, resharing a three-year-old clip of the digital encyclopedia’s co-founder Larry Sanger torching his creation for going “woke.”

“Don’t take it from me (I’m just a frog after all), take it from the co-founder of Wikipedia,” Musk wrote under his new pseudonym.

(Sanger wasn’t amused by the dredged-up interview. Instead, he torched the billionaire for refusing to refund an “ineffective annual subscription” to X. “Tell your staff to refund my money, Elon,” Sanger wrote.)

Musk’s alleged burner account, Adrian Dittman, also got in on the tired meme, preemptively toying with the idea that journalists would legitimately refer to the incoming Department of Government Efficiency co-chair via his chosen joke title.

“Imagine you’re a journalist who’s writing about Elon on X and it goes: ‘Elon Musk, aka ‘Kekius Maximus’ on X…” Dittman posted Tuesday.

Donald Trump claimed Monday that he’s already begun making moves toward making Canada the fifty-first state, and nobody’s excited.

Trump shared a screenshot of a post from Leading Report, a right-wing website that offers some news, some misinformation, and lots of conspiracy theories. Now, it seemingly reported a piece of otherwise unreported ”news” that was instantly elevated by the president-elect.

“Kevin O’Leary says he will go to Mar-a-Lago to ‘start the narrative’ about merging Canada with the United States because ‘we don’t want Trudeau negotiating this deal,’” a post last week stated.

“Think about the power of combining the two economies,” the post added, listing possible benefits to combining the two massive nations, including a common currency, open trade, and an “EU-type passport.”

Trump offered no comment or caption on the post, but reshared it to his followers on Monday.

O’Leary, a Canadian businessman known for Shark Tank, praised the idea of making Canada the fifty-first state during an appearance on Fox News last Friday.

“I think this is a great idea, and I think the potential is massive, and the opportunity is huge,” O’Leary said. “I think at the end of the day, Canadians and Americans, their DNA is the same in terms of what they believe in … freedom.”

Trump’s ravings about Canada began as a joke in response to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s warning that Trump’s plan to enforce steep tariffs would cripple both their economies. Rather than actually engage with the issue, Trump joked that Canada should just become the fifty-first state.

Now he’s taking that joke too far, and likely putting some money in Mr. Wonderful’s pocket.

“Thank you, MAGA, for turning the US into the laughingstock of the world,” wrote the X account Republicans Against Trump in response to Trump’s post.

Others pointed out that Trump was once again moving to work alongside an unelected billionaire, rather than an actual representative of the country he hopes to take over.

Some speculated that Trump was only interested in trolling world leaders and playing with his map.

And others were just taken aback by how stupid the entire thing is.

Donald Trump has two words for his controversial Cabinet nominees: Be quiet.

The president-elect’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, issued a frank missive to Trump’s nominees on Sunday, warning the cohort to tone down their social media activity ahead of their Senate confirmation hearings.

“While this instruction has been delivered previously, I am reiterating that no member of the incoming administration or Transition speaks for the United States or the President-elect himself,” Wiles wrote in a memo obtained by the New York Post.

“Accordingly, all intended nominees should refrain from any public social media posts without prior approval of the incoming White House counsel,” she continued.

Wiles—dubbed the “Ice Maiden”—did not specify in her memo if she was responding to any singular incident. But one Trump transition source told the Post it wasn’t related to the heated debate between the “tech-right” and far-right factions of Trump’s base over H-1B visas.

Incoming Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, co-chairs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have found themselves at the epicenter of a digital brawl over their ardent defense of the work visa program. Last week, Musk claimed that H-1B visas offer a solution to a “permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent” in the U.S. Far-right opponents of immigration—and Musk’s position—claim the H-1B visa disincentivizes companies from hiring American labor.

The H-1B visa program has an annual cap set by Congress, admitting 65,000 foreign workers per year. In 2023, it was estimated that there were more than 700,000 H-1B visa holders in the U.S., according to data from the American Immigration Council.

Republicans are in a tight position to push Trump’s controversial picks through the Senate process. Assuming that all Democrats will vote against Trump’s nominees, the president-elect can only afford to lose three Republican votes to squeeze his candidates into the executive branch.

Some of Trump’s more contentious Cabinet picks—such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard—have noticeably quieted their social media presence since Christmas.

Elon Musk has been “renting” a place to stay at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, and he didn’t leave until Christmas, according to recent reporting by The New York Times. Musk is expected to return in the next week.

Since election night, Musk has been lodging at the Banyan, one of the cottages closest to the main house on Mar-a-Lago, where Trump and his family stay. While other members of Trump’s circle have also stayed on the property, none have been as constant as the billionaire CEO, sources close to the situation told the Times.   

Trump has apparently been bragging that the world’s richest man is “renting” one of his properties. But no one actually knows if Trump will end up charging Musk for the stay. The Banyan usually rents for around $2,000 a night. Trump reportedly has raised the annual membership fee at Mar-a-Lago to $1 million. 

This underscores how close Trump and Musk have grown this year, and especially since the election. The Times noted that Trump posted on Truth Social a message meant privately for Musk, which read: “Where are you? When are you coming to the ‘Center of the Universe,’ Mar-a-Lago. Bill Gates asked to come, tonight. We miss you and x! New Year’s Eve is going to be AMAZING!!! DJT.”

Other members of Trump’s inner circle have griped about this bromance, complaining that Musk is overstepping boundaries. Musk has attempted to smooth things over with posts on X, but the “President Musk” meme persists.  

Laura Loomer still isn’t done with Elon Musk.

Appearing on Steve Bannon’s War Room, the anti-immigration activist on Monday torched the billionaire as a “welfare queen” and technocrat with outsize influence on U.S. politics thanks to his ongoing relationship with Donald Trump.

“If you have a bunch of tech bros with billions of dollars and direct unfettered access to the vice president and the president of the United States, and then they are also very cordial with our adversaries as in China and Iran—we see that Elon Musk is having these meetings off the books with Iranian officials, with Chinese officials—what does that mean for us?” Loomer posited.

The self-described “white advocate” has been in a social media brawl with the Tesla CEO for the last week over Musk’s ardent defense of the H-1B work visa program, which he claimed offers a solution to a “permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent” in the U.S. Far-right opponents of the immigration program—and Musk’s position—claim that the H-1B visa disincentivizes companies to hire American labor.

In several posts, Loomer accused Musk of having “bought his way into MAGA,” claimed he was a pawn of China, and said that the “divorce” between the “stage 5 clinger” and President-elect Donald Trump was on the horizon.

That was apparently enough back talk to strip Loomer of her verified status on the site—a loss that, for her, warranted a public appeal to Musk to reinstate her blue check. Loomer has been banned from practically every other social media platform for her incendiary and violent rhetoric.

The H-1B visa program has an annual cap set by Congress, admitting 65,000 foreign workers per year. In 2023, it was estimated that there were more than 700,000 H-1B visa holders in the U.S., according to data from the American Immigration Council.