We’re all pretty aware the world’s richest man is not the world’s smartest man, but this one might take the cake. On Sunday, Elon Musk took to his personal playground, X, to post an image of the Skywalker family from Star Wars. In it, Anakin and Padme are their younger selves, as Anakin sits on some kind of throne surrounded by Imperial soldiers, and young Luke and Leia wear Imperial officer outfits. “This is what they stole from us,” Musk wrote.
What the hell does that mean? Who is “they?” Is Musk implying Imperial life is preferable to freedom? Honestly, we have no flipping clue. But Musk’s post and its origins do point to a larger conversation that’s currently happening. Most likely, Musk is piling onto a trend this week of right-wing thinkers painting Anakin Skywalker in a positive light as a poster boy for the white, male experience, and it’s all very, very weird.
This is what they stole from us pic.twitter.com/q1GnpjF394
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2026
Musk’s own Grok AI describes the trend as follows:
Memes from the prequels, like Anakin’s clashes with the Jedi Council or his Mustafar burning, pair with captions about modern grievances over family, culture, and recognition. Conservative voices flipped criticisms of the films to portray Jedi as out-of-touch gatekeepers, with Elon Musk posting about the Skywalker family as something ‘stolen’ and Lauren Chen blaming Padmé’s death on ideology over kids. While some defend Anakin as a victim of corrupt systems, others highlight his murders of Jedi younglings and choking of his pregnant wife, mixing humor with debates on romanticizing his dark turn.
Where, exactly, all this came from is unclear. Some point to a viral X post from last week, which has been viewed over 1.5 million times, of a young Anakin Skywalker standing in front of the Jedi Council in The Phantom Menace with the caption “The white male experience.” The Department of Education also, oddly, posted AI art of Anakin and Padme with the caption “There’s magic in learning. Make education great again.” And Katie Miller, a right-wing podcaster and wife of President Trump’s advisor Stephen Miller, posted herself dressed as Padme for Halloween with the caption “Find the Anakin in your life.” From there, the trend has continued ad nauseam, kind of reaching an apex with Musk’s contribution.
Find the Anakin in your life pic.twitter.com/OXufQCwqQx
— Katie Miller (@KatieMiller) October 31, 2026
In a sea of head-scratchers, Miller’s Tweet is the most understandable of the bunch, so we’ll start there in order to dive a little deeper. The suggestion is that Padme and Anakin had a healthy relationship and that every “Padme” needs their “Anakin.” Devoid of context, it’s basically a pro-romance post. And yet, as seemingly every single reply or quote has pointed out, Anakin all but killed Padme himself and went on to murder many, many people (kids included) as he followed a fascist emperor who was taking over the galaxy. Did he originally do that because of a desire to bring Padme back? Sure. Did that eventually get very, very lost in the whole “I’m Darth Vader, and I’m going to kill all the Jedi” of it all? Yes, that too.
Of course, at the end of Return of the Jedi, Skywalker does his best to redeem himself by killing that fascist leader and sacrificing himself for his kids. And, after spending more and more time with him on shows like The Clone Wars and Ahsoka, a fan-driven idea of him as a good guy has become more prevalent. But none of that takes away from the basic, simple facts of Star Wars.
Anakin Skywalker was given every chance at being a hero and, selfishly, chose the path of evil. He then continued down that path, following a violent, genocidal fascist regime… until he didn’t. And he wasn’t forced to do any of that. He got jealous of his friend Obi-Wan Kenobi. He Force-choked his wife. He lost the battle with Kenobi. And he chose to pledge allegiance to Darth Sidious, aka Emperor Palpatine.
Anakin’s creator, George Lucas, recently opened a museum in Los Angeles called the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. The message of that museum, and therefore Lucas himself, is that art is subjective. It all tells a narrative. You see in it whatever you want. And so, we’d imagine, Lucas wouldn’t necessarily oppose people spinning Star Wars and Anakin Skywalker for their own beliefs. Taking his text and showering it with subjectivity.
But, we believe, he would also point to his own intentions as the original artist. He’s famously said time and time again that they are all movies for 12-year-olds. “Friendships, honestly, trust, doing the right thing, living on the right side, and avoiding the dark side. Those are the things it was meant to do,” he once said. Star Wars has been, and always will be, about standing up for your beliefs and fighting tyranny. Even when the movies are about the rise of that tyranny, you are not meant to side with them. Good triumphs over evil, and the people in the dark black are evil. Especially their leaders.
But it’s the internet. Shit is gonna get weird. And Star Wars will always fit right into that.
io9 reached out to Lucasfilm for comment on this story but did not hear back as of publication. We’ll update the post when we hear back.
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