Musk, Farage, and the Far-Right’s Quiet Coup
From gilded rooms to social media feeds, the far-right marches unchecked, weaponising discontent and rewriting the script of democracy into a dirge for freedom.
It begins with a photo, a gilded room at Mar-a-Lago, three men standing close: Elon Musk, Nigel Farage, and an unnamed benefactor, with the looming image of a young Donald Trump in the background. If there were ever a tableau that captured the shifting axis of global power—a tableau that hinted at the creeping return of dangerous ideologies—this might be it.
What we are witnessing now is not just a political phenomenon but a tectonic shift in the Western democratic order. The ascent of far-right ideologies, once thought relegated to the fringes, is now moving into the mainstream corridors of power. In Germany, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) openly campaigns on dismantling the European Union, a project borne of post-WWII ideals of peace and cooperation. Across the Atlantic, an emboldened far-right in the United States, aided and abetted by billionaires like Musk, is brazenly working to undercut the very foundations of the democratic alliances that have shaped global stability for over seven decades. And the United Kingdom, already battered by Brexit, is not immune. Musk’s reported willingness1 to fund Farage’s Reform UK Party signals a new level of coordination and ambition
