An imaginary
Musk still believes he’s scripting history, but he is just another extra, stumbling through Trump’s rerun. A billionaire’s billionaire who wanted to break the system now spends his days simping for the man who already did, trading his techno-utopian fantasies for retweets and reactionary scraps. The disruptor has become the servant, a grotesque fusion of wealth and insecurity, grovelling at the feet of a washed-up demagogue who can’t even take a dump without assistance.
Who is the Groom of the Stool, and who is the Apprentice? In theory, Musk should be the one shaping, moulding, the master of capital, bending the political machine to his will. But reality mocks theory. The Groom of the Stool was once the closest to the king, whispering in his ear while wiping his arse, an intimate servant, but a servant nonetheless. That’s Musk now, fussing over the heritage, keeping the pipeline of sycophancy flowing, laundering his own irrelevance through proximity to power.
And the Apprentice? That was Trump’s brand, his mythology, the businessman who commands, who fires, who builds. But there’s no empire left to build, only the wreckage to squat in. If anyone is the Apprentice now, it’s Musk, still convinced he is learning at the feet of history when he’s just another contestant, waiting to hear You’re fired.
Curtain up. The empire is already in its final act.
If Debord were here, he would see it clearly: this isn’t a rupture; it’s the logical endpoint of a system where image has consumed reality, where capital no longer needs the nation-state but still enjoys the sport of humiliating it.
Twitter, sorry, “X” was never a town square. It was a hall of mirrors, a surveillance machine masquerading as conversation. Musk didn’t liberate it; he gutted it, turned it into a high-speed misinformation cannon aimed at the remnants of democratic governance. Not because he believes in anything, but because he is just another avatar of the spectacle, a man so warped by wealth and ketamine loops that he mistook his own delusions for history.
And then there’s Trump, a perfect artefact of the society of the spectacle: a creature of pure appearance, a brand that never required a product. A fake billionaire carried to power by fake news, and now rich in fake coinage, seeking his encore with the help of an actual billionaire who doesn’t realise he’s the punchline. Musk is the errand boy, sent by capital’s ghost to collect what is left of the republic.
But what Debord understood and what Musk never will is that the spectacle doesn’t need a master. It’s self-perpetuating, a machine that survives by accelerating its own destruction. Sound familiar? The state was always going to be discarded when it ceased to be useful. Musk just happens to be the guy in the driver’s seat, thinking he is in control, right up until it crashes him into the wall.
But why bother with fiction when reality’s already lapping it? Coppola could have saved his Megalopolis retirement cash, real life is here, unfolding in high-definition collapse, starring a cast of oblivious billionaires and washed-up demagogues, all convinced they’re the auteurs of history when they are just extras in its final act.
No B-listers in this White House, Ronald is gone, and the new script doesn’t call for charm. Elon’s dead behind the eyes, mainlining his own hype, while the Twitler Youth chase the dragon down algorithmic deep state K-holes, jacked up on adrenochrome conspiracies and engagement farming. The old myths are burning, but the freaks running the circus don’t even realise they are the ones on fire.
Ronnie still serves, golden arches gleaming in the twilight of empire, but the commander-in-chief can only suck from a floppy, flaccid, straw, his quarter pounder and Diet Coke a banquet fit for a king. My kingdom, my kingdom for a straw—plastic, fit for a tyrant. With the last fast-food, Rome feeds its autocrats, drowning dignity in corn syrup and self-parody.
Will this Rome burn? Who will fiddle?
This is the last century.
