46 Comments
User's avatar
Virgin Monk Boy's avatar

This read like a bedtime story written by a Jungian analyst who just took acid. And I mean that as a compliment.

You're absolutely right: we keep trying to fight hydras with spreadsheets, mistaking chaos for a glitch in the matrix instead of what it is—the new OS. Elon isn’t an outlier anymore. He’s the logical endpoint of a culture that confuses attention for intelligence and virality for virtue. If Trump was the firestarter, Musk is the one selling NFT marshmallows at the bonfire.

The Dragon King metaphor hits hard. And the scariest part? His superpower isn't money or intellect—it’s that he embodies both the parody and the prophecy of American exceptionalism.

Get ready for black caps, alright. Embroidered with QR codes that link straight to ego inflation and crypto scams.

Expand full comment
Jessica's avatar

Thanks for getting it. :) Elon is absolutely the endpoint, and I agree he feels like the inevitable result of all this absurdity. I tried to hint at what a Democrat dragon king would look like, and he's currently running for NY mayor. Honestly, an immigrant with a little compassion might be exactly what we need for president, and of course the MAGA world seems to be already discovering their exact antithesis of that in Musk.

Expand full comment
Pat Woodruff's avatar

This is one of your best ever, Jessica, and the writing is fun and engaging. I was aware. of the sand pile theory as it relates to finance, but had not heard of Didier Sornette. Maybe the Dems could put forward a reclusive but obnoxious prepper from rural Utah... or Florida!

Expand full comment
Jessica's avatar

Thanks. Or maybe they can put forward a socialist from California.

Expand full comment
Liz L's avatar

The rules are off the table for everything and our constitution is not even on the WH website. For those who say he can’t run, they are not reading the room. Our federal constitution no longer exists. Prove me wrong.

Yes, I think he might run for president because there is literally no constitution. He will have to buck up to the Supreme Court which will not be much of a problem, though. I think they will go for it he gives them each 500 million. These folks are loyal to money. Musk’s puppet didn’t work so he will make sure that it is HE (Musk) in power. Although the Tesla is lucrative, owning a whole damn country will be even more so. We must check out the backgrounds of any new people entering politics, regardless of party.

Expand full comment
Jessica's avatar

It's true, the Justices love their gifts and donations, don't they?

Expand full comment
teri Gray's avatar

Tuberville is AL’s senator despite not ticking the Constitutional box of living in that state. So, yeah, Elon will try, if his drug addiction doesn’t take him out first.

Expand full comment
Cathy Dunn's avatar

Dang Jessica, this is a brilliant piece 👏🏻 Seriously, phenomenal work. What’s scary is how sur- r e a l our reality has evolved in short order. More likely we’ve been living in denial for decades with eyes wide shut to the underlying depths of darkness lurking amid our ignorance of complacency waiting to emerge like a noxious virus. It’s here. And we STILL don’t know how to deal with this new reality.

Expand full comment
Jessica's avatar

Thanks. :) As depressing as it is, I think this theory helps nail down the problems we face. The comments insisting that this will "never happen" just kind of reinforce the larger points about falling to respond to shifting systems. After the five years we've had, I think Elon Musk running for president or something equally ridiculous happening completes the current puzzle.

Expand full comment
Paul Meccano's avatar

It fits.

I’ve been tallying the Trump on-a-string puppet-moves of late, and for doing so at least feel I’m looking through the looking glass into the crazy world of project 2025/2026 – it’s a bit like taking mushrooms but less connected, shrink-me potions but with no door my size at the end. It feels like entering a world where nothing but egoic power-play makes any sense, like some kind of pinball game for dicks, whose balls are so big they get stuck in the launcher, dicks with balls that nobody wants to play with.

They’re taking over institutions that may be socialist but aren’t the people, they play with money that isn’t soul, that, in the long run, doesn’t matter, like children playing with dried up cat poo found in the soil, and they’re currently making mud pies that are making mummy frown.

I don’t care about what they care about; of course Musk is the new fall guy.

Expand full comment
Jessica's avatar

It fits. Any rational person with that much money wouldn't have started DOGE and wouldn't be forming a new political party. Musk could spend the rest of his life playing video games and designing robot girlfriends, but that's not what a megalomaniac narcissist wants. He believes he can do everything. Yep, you're analogy is spot on. All of this is like a major drug trip.

Expand full comment
Paul Meccano's avatar

Two party politics, one Trump the other Musk; a pair of balls stuck in a loaded pinball machine called American democracy.

I mean, to call democrats left has been a lie all along. Who in America had called that out and made a headline lately?

America and Americans themselves, having been on pills for much of their/its life, are currently on a comedown without anything to drink or eat, not other than shit-pie and more Kool-Aid.

The house deals the cards.

Expand full comment
Thomas was lost's avatar

Fair comment. It makes me shudder, but it’s possible.

Expand full comment
Stacey Voorn's avatar

We would also need an amendment to the constitution, but he could pick a puppet the same way the Heritage Foundation has used Trump.

Expand full comment
Hope Arnold's avatar

The Constitution would have to be amended in order for him to run. Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 requires the President to be a natural-born citizen, at least thirty-five years of age, and a resident of the United States for at least fourteen years. He was born in South Africa.

Considering the current state of our courts, I have no faith there won’t be some sort of work around to this. It’s not like the rule of law matters in the US anymore.

Expand full comment
Jessica's avatar

Point addressed in some additions. The constitution also limits a president to 2 terms, but who doesn't think Trump is going to try and run again in 2028?

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment deleted
Jul 15
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
Jessica's avatar

For nearly four years, I listened to people say he couldn't run, he wouldn't run, he would go to jail first, he would cut a deal to give up his run for a suspended sentence, and for nearly four years I listened to people say Elon Musk wasn't a threat to be taken seriously, and that even DOGE wouldn't have any real power. The entire point of the essay is that almost anything that seems sane or rational is not going to happen, because we have left rational systems behind us.

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment deleted
Jul 15
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
Jessica's avatar

These days, almost everyone is someone else's puppet. All these people probably have leverage over each other in different ways. That seems to be the biggest, hardest lesson.

Expand full comment
Wade R's avatar

What needs to happen is a complete breakdown and dismantling of the social hierarchy we have and have any adults left to put Humpty back together again.

Anarchy anyone??

*sarcasm* ?? I think 🤔

Expand full comment
Bobbi Dempsey's avatar

This makes a lot of sense, and I could see Musk trying it (or at least considering it). One hiccup: he's not a natural-born citizen, which the Constitution requires for presidential eligibility. Then again, the Constitution doesn't seem that important to this MAGA crowd.

Expand full comment
afdjkhgakdfjhbl's avatar

I assume you know he's an immigrant and can't run for president. He'll pick a puppet.

Expand full comment
Jessica's avatar

That's the old paradigm. We live in a paradigm where laws mean very little and the Constitution means what those with power say it does.

Expand full comment
Jonathan McCloud's avatar

The Victor Writes the History (and the Future).

Expand full comment
Asher Miller's avatar

Except it would be taken to court and eventually the Supreme Court, who would *not* be likely to side with Elon on this.

Expand full comment
Meg Sumner's avatar

Obeying the Constitution is so 2015.

Expand full comment
Bernard Fensterwald's avatar

Musk is not eligible.

Expand full comment
Meg Sumner's avatar

SCOTUS will change that for the right price.

Expand full comment
Susanne Weil's avatar

Musk was not born in the U.S., so the Constitution would have to be amended to allow him to run. Would this Congress do that for Musk since they largely loathe him?

Expand full comment
Jessica's avatar

That's the old paradigm. We live in a paradigm where laws mean very little and the Constitution means what those with power say it does. Congress despises Trump just as much, but they're scared of him. As the Epstein files blow up in his face, the tables could turn quick, and that's the point of dragon king theory.

Expand full comment
KiwiG's avatar

So … we need a Tony Stark to go up against MAGA … this is assuming there will be elections in 2028!

Expand full comment
Mad AF American's avatar

Elon Musk? Hell to the nah!

Expand full comment
François Joinneau's avatar

Why don't you run for president, Jessica?

Expand full comment
Jessica's avatar

Worst. Job. Ever. :)

Expand full comment
François Joinneau's avatar

I know. I ran myself for my country in 2007. By the time I stood for Continental Union. Continental Union(aka the eastward expanding of European Union) is more than ever the solution to bring peace to this world. We are nothing, I admit. But I felt, and still feel, compelled to do something symbolic. I encourage you strongly to claim that symbolic thing. Because symbolic power is real. Small, but real.

Expand full comment