The same could be said for many factions of the political right, but we’ll use these two as a case study to examine a few obvious contradictions – particularly how they navigate being global technocrats and ethnic nationalists simultaneously.

First – borderless futures for capital and innovation are in direct opposition with cultural and ethnic isolation. Look at any major financial or tech hub across the world, the sectors which governments are piling money into for wider economic growth, and you’ll see people from all over the world congregate and be selected from very rigorous screening processes, tending to select those gifted both academically and in terms of network and connections. Both of these selection criteria make for good employees and managerial divisions at firms looking to scale, or looking to consolidate current business models – you want people ambitious enough to want to prosper, but stay within the confines of your organisation.

This is where Musk’s practical needs clash directly with Farage’s rhetoric. Musk’s empire is built on global mobility – Tesla’s German gigafactory staffed by European engineers, SpaceX’s reliance on international aerospace talent, his businesses’ constant use of H-1B visas. This is the exact kind of movement Farage rails against in his speeches about immigration control. Yet when Musk opens a new facility, neither mentions how it conflicts with their ‘Britain/America First’ messaging. Meanwhile, Farage speaks to economically and socially depressed areas across the UK, places that have faced years of austerity and broken promises. His vision of Britain outside the sphere of globalist economics, returning to a day where we ‘looked after our own,’ resonates deeply in these communities – even as it contradicts the very economic forces his allies like Musk represent.

Deep irony

The irony deepens in places like Sunderland or South Wales, where promises of technological revival consistently meet the reality of global capital flows. When Musk talks about building factories, he means wherever labor is cheapest and regulations loosest. When Farage talks about ‘taking back control,’ he means preventing exactly the kind of economic migration that tech hubs require to function. Yet both sell the same dream to their followers: prosperity through isolation, wealth through walls – just with convenient exceptions for the right kind of people with the right kind of bank accounts.

Yet somehow they maintain their alliance. Why? Because they’ve mastered a particular sleight of hand: claiming to be anti-establishment while being its ultimate beneficiaries. They might both be part of the establishment, but it’s not them – it’s the rest of the establishment you’ve got to watch out for. They’re the wolves to you, little sheeple. We’re your friendly sheepdogs, just give us what we need – which is power – and we’ll give you what you need. And if circumstances happen to get worse over time, just give us more power, evidently the bad establishment actors are more entrenched than even we thought.

Their apparent resolution to this contradiction comes through careful categorization: some immigrants are better than others. They’re the ones that can help make us money, or provide other forms of essential service to our society, and those that can’t fulfil either of those roles have no place in British society. They can go die in the Channel.

Selective use of principles

This selective application of principles becomes most visible in their use of social media. Here, the contradiction between global tech mogul and nationalist finds its perfect expression. Musk’s Twitter/X feed whiplashes between celebrating Tesla’s ‘global workforce’ and warning about immigration’s threats to Western civilization. One day he’s announcing a new factory in Mexico, the next he’s supporting border wall expansion.

Farage, through his GB News appearances and social media posts, performs a similar dance – praising British business innovation while condemning the very international cooperation that enables it. Their recent public spat over Farage’s account restrictions on X perfectly captures this dynamic – two figures claiming to fight for freedom while arguing over who gets to control the switches of power.

What’s particularly clever about their approach is how they’ve turned the algorithm’s tendency toward polarization to their advantage. Their followers aren’t just receiving contradictory messages – they’re being trained to accept these contradictions as normal. Through these platforms, they create echo chambers that normalize these contradictions, making the impossible seem logical: a borderless future for the “right” kind of people, walls for everyone else.

And with that, the job is complete. Your online overlords tell you what to think – the exact opposite of the freethinking and contrarian tendencies they so espoused, because that’s never what it was about. It was just clever marketing for the most part. In this case, they were a product your mind chose to buy.

Fragile but durable

Their recent falling out reveals something fundamental about this alliance – its simultaneous fragility and durability. Like the relationship between global capital and nationalism itself, their partnership persists not despite its contradictions but because of them. Each needs the other: Musk needs Farage’s nationalist credibility to mask his global capitalist agenda, while Farage needs Musk’s tech mogul status to legitimize his selective xenophobia. The contradictions aren’t bugs – they’re features of a right-wing ideology that promises both global capitalism and national isolation.

But perhaps these very contradictions contain the seeds of their undoing. As their followers begin to see through the careful categorizations, as communities realize that promises of technological salvation through isolation are inherently contradictory, as social media users become more aware of how their attention is being manipulated – the careful balance these figures maintain becomes harder to sustain. The same global connections they simultaneously celebrate and condemn might just be what enables people to see through their act. After all, it’s getting harder to sell walls to a world that can see clearly over them.