Elon Musk reminds Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine‘s Evil Empire album, but not in a good way.

The tech billionaire recently took to X, the social platform that he purchased and renamed from Twitter, to declare, “Why are so many people raging FOR the machine?” alongside the crying-laughing emoji. 

In response, Morello fired back, “Funny cuz Elon was the kid on the cover of Evil Empire.”

The cover features a smirking kid wearing a superhero outfit emblazoned with the letter E, for Evil Empire, implying that his intentions are not pure. 

Of course, Musk wasn’t actually the model for the Evil Empire cover — that would be Ari Meisel, an author and entrepreneur. Meisel told Kerrang! in 2021 that the artwork on which the cover was based was created by an artist friend of his father’s for his 11th birthday.

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