Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello couldn’t miss a chance to tease Elon Musk after the tech mogul made an awkward reference to his band’s name over the weekend.
In a Sunday post on X (formerly Twitter), Musk, the social platform’s owner, wondered, “Why are so many people raging FOR the machine?”
Though the Tesla CEO didn’t exactly explain who or what he was referring to, that same day he shared a post asking why “no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala” after a man apparently tried to shoot former President Donald Trump at his West Palm Beach, Florida golf course.
(After being criticized for appearing to endorse violence, Musk deleted the tweet and, in subsequent posts, dismissed his comment as a joke.)
No matter the meaning, Morello seemed amused by the billionaire’s attempt to frame himself as some sort of rebel and decided to respond with his own post.
“Funny cuz Elon was the kid on the cover of Evil Empire,” the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer quipped, sharing the cover of Rage’s 1996 album, which features a clean-cut kid wearing a cape and a shirt bearing the letter “e” for evil.
The album’s title was a reference to Republican President Ronald Reagan, borrowing a phrase he used to describe the Soviet Union during the final gasps of the Cold War in the 1980s.
Meant to be a subversive dig at conservatives, the cover depicts an all-American kid as the image of evil instead of the communists that Reagan and his peers raged against.
Famous for ’90s alt-rock anthems like “Bulls on Parade” and “Guerrilla Radio,” Rage Against the Machine has long been known for its overtly political, anarchist-adjacent, capitalism-critical music.
And Morello has made no secret about his disdain for the right-wing through the years.
Back in 2020, the rocker mocked Trump fans for moshing to the band’s track “Killing in the Name,” a song that openly calls out police brutality and white supremacy, ending with the lyrics “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me” on repeat.
When the guitarist caught wind of a clip of men in “Make America Great Again” hats waving a Trump flag and a Blue Lives Matter banner while dancing to the song, he reposted the video and wrote, “Not exactly what we had in mind.”
Earlier this year, Morello also took a swipe at conservatives who were irate at the pop-punk band Green Day for updating their George W. Bush-era song “American Idiot” to criticize the MAGA movement.
