Hundreds of thousands of Americans protested against President Donald Trump this past weekend in cities big and small across the country. But people like billionaire Elon Musk and right-wing influencer Laura Loomer are convinced these protests couldn’t possibly be organic. In fact, Loomer has claimed that she found evidence the protests are being coordinated by shadowy foreign entities. And her conspiracy theories would be absolutely hilarious if Loomer wasn’t wielding real power inside the White House right now by getting top security officials fired.
“I have exclusively confirmed that one of the busses used today to bus Muslim and radicals leftist protesters into Washington DC to protest President Trump is called SUMMER BUS TOUR INC!” Loomer tweeted on Saturday. “The registered agent for the bus is CHINESE.”
Loomer’s tweet appeared to suggest that the owner of the bus being of Chinese descent was somehow evidence that the Chinese government was funding protests against Trump.
“The bus is registered out of Massachusetts and the Chinese registered agents’ name is Yuxiu Wang! It appears that Chinese individuals and radical Muslims are now working together to march in support of HAMAS and ANTIFA on Capitol Hill. America is under attack!” Loomer wrote.
What exactly does Loomer mean by “radical Muslims” working with “HAMAS and ANTIFA”? Loomer has a long history of anti-Muslim bigotry. The far-right influencer used to promote herself as the most “banned” woman in the world after being kicked off many online platforms, from Uber to PayPal, because she so frequently spreads virulent hate. Back in 2018, Loomer rather infamously chained herself to the door of an office building where Twitter employees worked to protest her ban on that platform. Loomer was reinstated in Dec. 2022 after Musk bought Twitter.
Again, Loomer’s absurd theory that the nationality of someone who owns a bus would be almost funny if she didn’t have real proximity to power. Loomer reportedly got several top government officials fired from their posts recently, including the director of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command. A top Navy admiral at NATO headquarters in Brussels was the latest official to lose their job, making her the ninth person we’ve learned about, though it’s not clear if she was fired as a direct result of Loomer’s recommendations. Loomer appears to have only taken direct credit for the firing of the NSA director, though reporting from several news outlets suggests she was responsible for at least three others. Whatever the exact number, Trump has clearly been listening to Loomer’s complaints, which mostly seem to be rooted in strange conspiracy theories with no basis in fact.
Loomer isn’t alone in her absurd conspiracy theories about the protesters being part of some artificial operation rather than driven by real anger at the Trump regime. Musk has frequently insisted that protests, especially those against his car company Tesla, are simply a product of people paid by Democratic donors. The billionaire oligarch is currently helping dismantle the U.S. federal government with his so-called Department of Government Efficiency and insists that both peaceful protests and the arson at his dealerships around the world are a product of George Soros paying people to oppose him.
Musk even shouted “say hi to George for me” at a protester during his recent event in Wisconsin, apparently a reference to Soros. Ironically, Musk was there to hand out two $1 million checks in his bid to pay people for voting in that election. Musk was supporting a MAGA judge who lost his election, something the billionaire also suggested was somehow rigged.
The Tesla CEO has also repeatedly shared videos of protesters who are simply inarticulate and clearly shy about being on camera, pretending as though their inability to deliver a quick soundbite about their motivations for protesting prove they must be actors.
“Based on the videos I’ve seen so far, the worst fear of the paid Tesla ‘protestors’ appears to be having to get a real job,” Musk tweeted on March 30.
There’s no evidence that any of the people protesting against Trump and Musk are paid to do so. And given the hundreds of thousands who showed up at protests around the country over the weekend, that would be quite a bill to pay if you needed to shell out money to every one of them.
