Rage Against The Machine's Tom Morello Fires Back At Elon Musk Over "Raging For The Machine" Comment

Billionaire Elon Musk recently took a somewhat indirect shot towards multi-platinum rap metal firebrands Rage Against The Machine, and he promptly received a fiery retort back from the band’s acclaimed guitarist Tom Morello for it.

Musk‘s political leanings and views are a frequent topic of discussion for him on his X social media platform, which not so coincidentally is where this exchange took place. Musk, who has positioned himself as a free speech advocate, and has more recently shown support for Donald Trump‘s campaign for the U.S. presidency, stated yesterday evening (September 15th) on X:

Whether or not Musk‘s comment was a snub partially directed towards the aforementioned Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame-inducted band, a few hours later, Morello fired back with:

If you haven’t been keeping score, Morello has previously been critical of Musk in the past. Meanwhile, “Evil Empire” was of course the title to the 3x multi-platinum 1996 sophomore album from Rage Against The Machine. The title of that record was meant as a condemnation of the unsavory aspects of U.S. policy both domestic and foreign, and originated from a speech issued by late U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

That speech was issued in the 1980s and found Reagan speaking out against the Soviet Union at the time. However, to be clear, Morello was speaking in the more figurative sense in regards to his comment on Musk, who was not the actual cover model for that outing.

As covered back in 2018 by Kerrang!, the individual depicted of the album cover was Ari Meisel, as painted by Mel Ramos for a piece titled ‘CrimeBusters’. The band later came across the painting and adapted it for the album’s cover.

While Rage Against The Machine have weathered numerous firestorms for their political beliefs over the years, the pandemic years saw vocal critics of the band decry them as ‘Rage For The Machine’ due to their compliance with COVID-19-related health practices being enforced by venues on their abbreviated 2022 reunion tour.

Detractors, particularly among right-wing and anti-vax circles, took issues with the group’s shows potentially being restricted by local health guidelines. However, as Morello clarified this past July, by the time the band was actually able to embark on that tour in the wake of several pandemic-related delays, there were no mandatory vaccination restrictions enforced at any of the shows they actually played.