This is where the similarities begin. Trump is exiled from the platform now, but that’s precisely because by the end of his time there, he was too much of a power user — or a power abuser. His favorite activity besides issuing presidential proclamations in fewer than 280 characters was name-calling: “low-lifes,” “dopes,” “dogs,” “drunk/drugged-up losers.”

Musk replaces the boomer sensibility Trump brought to the service with the spirit of a red-pilled, 4chan-addled teenager. He likes memes that don’t look as though your deranged uncle made them on Microsoft Paint, and he has keen knowledge of the art of the troll.

Yet the impulse to demean, and to summon tens of millions of frenzied followers to add injury to his every insult, mirrors the one-time commander in chief’s instinct. “Pedo guy,” Musk once called a cave diver who helped rescue a trapped team of young soccer players in Thailand. And Musk, too, makes real-world mischief with his online missives. Remember when he said he had secured funding to take Tesla private at $420 a share, and with those words (and weed joke) moved markets?