He is a hero of pop culture. Millions follow his exploits by social media and according to film director Jon Favreau, the latest depiction of Iron Man, the wildly popular cartoon character turned into a movie phenomenon, was inspired by Musk’s real life escapades. His adventures in space exploration fascinate millions. His car company, Tesla, is the ultimate in geek and upscale cool. His life and bio read like a movie. Well, Elon Musk may be adding another scene to that biographical film. It looks like he’s trending conservative and quite possibly Republican.

The reason is simple: Like many other Americans he just wants to get back to work. To that end he faced down Alameda County, California officials and California Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom recently and defyingly opened up his California businesses. Though after that, he announced he’d had enough and was moving his headquarters and other operations away from California and to Nevada and Texas. To add insult to injury, aimed at those who drove him away —again like a movie character— he tweeted this on Sunday.

“Take the red pill,” the Tesla CEO said to his 34 million social media followers on Twitter.

Take the red pill 🌹

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 17, 2020

A notable figure was quick in response.

Taken! https://t.co/Ng0S2OFC93

— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) May 17, 2020

“Take the red pill” is a line from the “The Matrix,” a 1999 film about seeking the complete truth free from spin or disinformation: “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.”

It’s also modern slang for leaving liberalism for conservatism. People have posted online messages and videos describing “red pill moments,” epiphanies that caused them to reject progressive ideology from friends, teachers, the news, and pop culture.

Let’s face it, as an ethos of adult responsibility and sober judgment, granted with the allure of free speech and the free market, conservatism has a hard time being perceived as cool. Oh sure, Trump is cool in a brash and take-no-prisoners fashion. But the ideology can seem to the young, uninitiated, and blockheaded like a warmed over grandfatherly lullaby about money and the good old days. To others who are gullible and worship the cult of celebrity, conservatives seem like either a nastier version of Gordon Gecko or Ward Cleaver on valium.

So the cultural and thus political implications of Musk going publicly conservative and perhaps GOP are enormous. It would give a modern, trendy, pop culturally glamorous sheen to the conservative movement and make it palatable to people and voters who see it as irredeemably outmoded and stodgy.

Tech geeks, sci-fi acolytes, social media mavens, comic book beta males, gamers, and trendoids of all varieties would flock to any banner Musk suggests, such is their power of independent thought.

Constituencies in high tech states like California, young voters, and more would be drawn to a Musk political endorsement. That could swing some interesting voters red and update the worn GOP pop culture stable of Pat Boone, Tom Selleck, and Bo Derek.

Musk could do that and much more for conservatism and the Republican Party. He seems to be trending that way. Let’s hope his journey continues.

This piece was written by David Kamioner on May 18, 2020. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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