In a bizarre and unexpected turn of events, billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk joined former President Donald Trump on stage at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.
This city was previously marked by an assassination attempt that killed firefighter Corey Comperatore and injured Trump and others. However, the rally was anything but solemn.
Musk, donning an all-black MAGA cap and an “Occupy Mars” t-shirt, bounced energetically as he took the stage, instantly becoming the subject of countless internet memes.
Critics on social media, particularly on X (formerly Twitter), which Musk purchased for $44 billion in 2022, mocked his awkward jumping and highlighted Trump’s apparent visual disgust.
Critiques of Musk’s appearance weren’t limited to his jumping technique. As Rolling Stone reported in August, Trump has privately described Musk as “weird,” “boring,” and annoying, citing his mood swings. In 2022, Trump publicly labeled Musk as “another bullshit artist.”
Despite these criticisms, Musk took the opportunity to make a dramatic statement about the upcoming presidential election.
Standing beside Trump, Musk declared, “This will be the last election” if Trump does not win, casting the election in dire terms and calling Trump the only candidate “to preserve democracy in America.” Musk added, “As you can see, I am not just MAGA — I am Dark MAGA,” acknowledging the ominous tone of his remarks.
This rally marked the first time Musk appeared at one of Trump’s events, highlighting their growing alliance as the presidential election approaches. Musk has established a super political action committee supporting the Republican nominee, spending heavily on get-out-the-vote efforts. Trump, in turn, has indicated that he would appoint Musk to lead a government efficiency commission if he regains the White House.
Musk’s behavior at the rally and his ominous statements have drawn widespread attention and criticism, with many comparing his antics to those of Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s controversial attorney.
“You used to be admired and respected for your genius. Now, you are rapidly becoming Rudy Giuliani,” author Andy Parker wrote. While another user compared Musk to Trump, Parker replied, “He’s not a fraud like Trump. He actually created amazing things. He just went nuts.”
As embarrassing accusations continue to surface in the criminal case against Trump, Musk’s actions have only added to the frenzy surrounding the former president’s campaign.
As far as Giuliani, his tech mishaps and awkward butt dials have long astonished the country, but the news last week was especially dumbfounding.
The former New York City mayor allegedly tried to text a group of influential Michigan lawmakers, urging them to overturn the 2020 election result, but he got the wrong number.
On Oct. 2, the Department of Justice’s Special Counsel Jack Smith outlined the expansive criminal case against Donald Trump, providing the most thorough account of the former President’s “increasingly desperate efforts” to overturn the 2020 election results to date.
The alleged gaffe by Giuliani was among the bombshells in the 165-page briefing filed with the court in Washington, D.C. Though Giuliani was not identified by name, he is widely presumed to be “co-conspirator 1.”
“On December 7, CC1 attempted to send P37 a message (though failed because he typed the wrong number into his phone),” the document read. It’s unclear who the message went to or if “CC1” knew he had misdialed.
The alleged message from Giuliani read: “So I need you to pass a joint resolution from the Michigan legislature that states that *the election is in dispute,* there’s an ongoing investigation by the Legislature, and * the Electors sent by Governor Whitmer are not the official Electors of the State of Michigan and do not fall within the Safe Harbor deadline of Dec 8 under Michigan Law.”
Cue the jokes on social media. “OMG. Giuliani texted his plan to steal the election to a wrong number,” wrote one X user with the laugh/cry emoji. “The comedy writes itself when Giuliani is involved,” tweeted another. Meanwhile, some are breathing a sigh of relief, saying, “God bless Rudy Giuliani, trump might be president if he’d hired a real lawyer.”
Trump first brought Giuliani onto his personal legal team in 2018 after the attorney advised his 2016 presidential campaign. After the 2020 election results, many who had Trump’s ear were “telling the defendant what he did not want to hear – that he had lost.” So he turned to old ally and staunch supporter Giuliani, knowing he “was willing to falsely claim victory and spread knowingly false claims of election fraud,” stated the briefing.
Giuliani’s relationship with Trump has been toxic, to say the least. It recently cost him his legal career. After his license was suspended in the nation’s capital in 2001, the 80-year-old was disbarred from practicing law in Washington in July due to “false and misleading statements” about Trump’s election loss, reported Newsweek.
As the former mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001, Giuliani led the city through the Sept. 11 attacks and took on organized crime, among other feats. So it’s especially disheartening to his supporters to see him fall so far, largely due to his unquestioning loyalty to Trump.
“Watching my dad’s life crumble since he joined forces with Trump has been extraordinarily painful, both on a personal level and because his demise feels linked to a dark force that threatens to once again consume America,” his daughter Caroline Giuliani, 35, wrote in a Vanity Fair article on Sept. 30.
As she endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, she blasted Trump, saying he “destroys everything he touches.”
“After months of feeling the type of sorrow that comes from the death of a loved one, it dawned on me that I’ve been grieving the loss of my dad to Trump. I cannot bear to lose our country to him too,” she wrote.
While Giuliani’s had his fair share of embarrassing moments pre-Trump, no one can deny the frequency has ramped up since “joining forces.” In October 2019, for instance, the prosecutor made headlines after butt-dialing an NBC News reporter, not once but twice, leaving long messages ranting about Biden and needing cash (the reporter let him go to voicemail).
There was the alleged farting during a Michigan voter fraud hearing. And the time he stuck his hands down his pants when he met with an actress from “Borat Subsequent Movie Film,” thinking she was a real journalist who wanted to interview him about Trump’s response to the pandemic.
Perhaps the most famous was the Four Seasons Total Landscaping snafu in November 2020. Trump supporters gathered in the parking lot of a nondescript garden center in Philadelphia to hear about “voter fraud” instead of at a Four Seasons hotel, all thanks to Giuliani’s mix-up.
The mysterious recipient of his texts has not been revealed, but one has an idea, “I wonder if Giuliani mistakenly sent it to FOUR SEASONS LANDSCAPING?”
