Ivanka Trump takes Elon Musk's 'red pill'

(Image credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

last updated 18 May 2020

Running a business during a global pandemic that has both crashed economies and killed hundreds of thousands of people is stressful, as is being a new father again in your late 40s. Tesla's Elon Musk, facing both challenges, has decided to embrace a meme from the 1999 sci-fi hit The Matrix, since adopted most famously by "men's rights activists" (MRAs) but also others who seek the hidden realities promised by Matrix co-creators Lana and Lilly Wachowski in their dystopian work of fiction.

"Take the red pill," Musk tweeted Sunday afternoon. For some reason, Ivanka Trump responded.

Lilly Wachowski also responded: "F--k both of you." The grandmother of Musk's newborn didn't appear to be impressed, either.

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This is the original source of the "red pill" meme, from Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) offering a new life to Neo (Keanu Reeves): "This is your last chance. After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."

So what rabbit hole has Musk tumbled into? Who knows. For added confusion, Musk added a red rose, the symbol used by democratic socialists, a group with which he does not affiliate himself. Maybe he's fully embracing President Trump's red #MAGA culture — which would kind of explain Ivanka's tweet — or has discovered that life really is a computer simulation. Or maybe he's just bored.

Ivanka Trump, a senior White House adviser to her father, is supposed to be the politically and socially enigmatic child from Trump's first marriage. We may never know what alternative realties she is seeing now that she's swallowed the red pill.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.