Not since the age of William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate who greased FDR’s ascent nearly a century ago, has a private citizen loomed so large over so many facets of American life at once, pulling the nation’s culture, its media, its economy, and now its politics into the force field of his will. Standing beside him, even Trump can seem almost in awe, less of a boss than a companion to the man for whom this planet and its challenges are not big enough.

To many of the young men who flocked to Trump in record numbers, Musk was an ideal avatar. He injected a sense of ingenuity and possibility into a familiar nostalgia act. If Trump thrills supporters by pledging to destroy corrupt institutions, Musk represents the promise of building new things and solving hard problems. Trump did not seem so old at his rallies with this Diablo-playing edgelord bouncing around beside him. And it became harder for Trump’s opponents to paint his team as a gaggle of halfwits when the greatest innovator of our time, with a record of delivering on outlandish plans, was pledging to slash spending by $2 trillion.