Is Elon Musk the False Prophet?

 NOTE: If you're new to my blog, start here with my initial post outlining the many links between Donald Trump and the biblical figure known as the Antichrist. 

                Revelation 13 describes two beasts that rise together during the end times. The first beast – the beast out of the sea, with seven heads and ten horns – is a figurative entity that denotes both the Antichrist and the world-controlling beast government that he incarnates and sums up in his own person. The second beast – the beast that arises out of the earth – has become known to prophecy researchers as the False Prophet. I made a blog post recently describing the coterie of yes-men (and yes-women) who surround Trump, and in that post I described these people as false prophets. However, this second beast figure is not just *any* false prophet, of which there have been many down through history. No, this figure is called *The* False Prophet, to denote his special role as the Antichrist’s right-hand man during the 42 months when the Antichrist will exercise global power.

                I recommend starting here with GotQuestions.org’s brief overview of this figure. However, I happen to disagree with one point made in that article; below I will specifically address my disagreement on the issue of the False Prophet's alleged 'miraculous' powers.

                Preliminary considerations: How the Bible describes the False Prophet

                Here, in full, is the text of Revelation 13:11-18, the verses which describe the False Prophet (I am putting in bold the words and phrases that I want to analyze in more depth below):

“The Beast out of the Earth

11 Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. 12 It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. 13 And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people. 14 Because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. 15 The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. 16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.

18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.”

Let’s take these bolded sections and address them in order:

·                  The False Prophet comes out of the earth. What does it mean that, in contrast to the first beast, which comes “out of the sea,” the second beast comes “out of the earth”? Scholars have not come to a firm conclusion on this question. There are various theories out there. One popular one is that “out of the earth” means that the False Prophet arises from out of the land of Israel/Palestine. It would seem to me, however, that there is no reason to conclude this. In fact, I believe that the distinction between ‘the sea’ and ‘the earth’ in this chapter may not be all that relevant for us to consider, because we also know that the fourth beast of Daniel 7 is described in that chapter as arising both “from out of the sea” (Daniel 7:3) *and* “from the earth” (Daniel 7:17).  Daniel’s fourth beast aligns with the beast out of the sea in Rev. 13 and the scarlet beast in Rev. 17.

·                 The False Prophet has two horns like a lamb. Now, here we are on firmer ground. The image of the Lamb is used throughout Revelation to refer to Jesus himself. The fact that the False Prophet is ‘like a lamb’ indicates, then, with some certainty, that the False Prophet will falsely promote himself as a teacher of Christianity or a representative of Jesus Christ's teachings. Other Bible passages describe Christians as sheep who are guarded by the true shepherd (Jesus). A lamb is a young sheep, typically less than one year old. So this fact could signify that the False Prophet might be a ‘baby Christian’ – i.e., a new convert to the faith.

·                 The False Prophet will also, however, speak like a dragon. Again, the meaning of this is clear: Just as Jesus is represented in Revelation as the Lamb who was slain for our sins, Satan is depicted as a red dragon in Rev. 12. Therefore, the meaning of this verse is that the False Prophet will publicly portray himself somehow as a teacher of Christian truths, yet at the same time he will also speak with deceptive and evil words that lack truth. Satan is described as the Accuser in Rev. 12, so the False Prophet will perhaps be a "Christian" in name only, who also accuses/slanders people and engages in hateful rhetoric.

·                The False Prophet exercises all the authority that the Antichrist wields. Because we know that the Antichrist is literally the ruler of the globe for 42 brief months, we must also conclude from this that the False Prophet possesses the exact same degree of global control. In other words, there is no power difference between the Antichrist and the False Prophet. Each figure is interchangeable when we ask about how powerful it is.

·                The False Prophet will also get the world’s population to worship the first beast (the Antichrist). Here, the English word ‘worship’ denotes the Greek term proskuneo (Strong’s Greek # 4352). Note from  Bible Hub that proskuneo can denote either worship of a god, or simply reverence due to a powerful earthly ruler: https://biblehub.com/greek/4352.htm

·                The False Prophet causes fire to come down from heaven to earth in the sight of the world’s inhabitants. It could be, then, that, like the Old Testament prophet Elijah – who challenged prophets of Baal and successfully drew down fire from YHWH to an altar that he had set up, thus showing that Baal is a false god and YHWH is the true God who responds to his true prophets – the False Prophet will be a biblical prophet in the mold of John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, etc. However, I’d also raise a note of caution: We don’t specifically know that the False Prophet will be someone who incorporates Christianity or the Bible in his prophesying. I mention this because we should remember that the Antichrist is an anti-God blasphemer who denies the Father and the Son. The Antichrist is in no sense a Christian figure, so I believe what we might expect of the False Prophet is that he makes a public show of embracing the moral teachings of Jesus while also failing to confess Jesus as the Son of God, the savior of the world. It could be that the prophesying of the False Prophet simply involves predictions about future events in the world. Merriam-Webster defines ‘prophesying’ as either uttering a divinely inspired oracle, or simply predicting future events. In the latter sense, many explicitly non-religious people ‘prophesy’ all the time: “Such and such an event is surely going to happen within the next decade or century” is a statement that could be a prophecy from an atheist or secularist.

·               The False Prophet also is said to perform signs. Here, ‘sign’ is an equivalent for the Greek semeion (Greek Strong’s #4592), which is associated on Bible Hub with the words: wonder, sign, portent, token, indication or miracle. Note, then, that a ‘sign’ is not necessarily a miracle. Something like an eclipse or a shooting star could be an indication, token, portent or wonder without being specifically miraculous (i.e., defying the laws of nature as understood by science). I mention this because I believe that the prophecy research community has become overtaken by the notion that the False Prophet will by definition need to perform certain miraculous signs (like an end times David Copperfield pulling a rabbit out of a hat). That could be – or it could be that the signs that the False Prophet performs are wondrous and impressive and indicative of great power, but nevertheless don’t break the scientific laws of nature. The abovementioned article from GotQuestions.org repeats the common interpretation of the False Prophet using "miraculous signs and wonders." Again - we don't know whether these will be actual miracles, or simply powerfully impressive events that follow the laws of nature yet still serve as omens or portents of the future.

·               The False Prophet also sets up an image of the first beast (the Antichrist), an image which is given breath so as to speak. Here, ‘image’ is a translation of the Greek eikon, which could refer to a statue, or perhaps simply to some sort of representation or likeness. Many (especially in the twentieth century) thought of the image of the beast as being a robot with a speaking head. In more recent years, many have speculated that the speaking image could be an AI deep-fake video of the Antichrist speaking.

·               The False Prophet also has the unique eschatological role of forcing the world’s people to take the mark of the beast, which will be necessary for all sorts of people to buy and sell goods in the marketplace. Of course, there has been endless speculation about what the mark of the beast is, exactly. Is it a tattoo, a microchip, a bracelet, vaccine passport, digital currency, etc.? No consensus has arisen as to what exactly the mark consists of, yet we do know from this verse that the person who will be in charge of forcing people to take it will be the False Prophet himself. That means that not only will the False Prophet be a powerfully influential commentator on world events, portraying himself falsely as being aligned with Jesus’s moral teachings – he will also exert an unparalleled power within big business (e.g., banking, social media, etc.) and/or government itself, such that his decisions will force the transition of the global economy from the current cash-based system into the future mark of the beast system.

       Additionally, there are two more important verses that we need to consider, from Rev. 16:13-14: “13 Then I saw three impure spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 14 They are demonic spirits that perform signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty.”

                Note here that the False Prophet is literally a demon-possessed host body masquerading as a human being, just like the Antichrist is. The evil spirit possessing the False Prophet will speak in a manner associated in some way with frogs (which I linked in another post to Pepe, aka Kek, the social media meme of a frog that the MAGA crowd often uses). This frog-like demonic spirit will gather the nations together for battle. We know from Rev. 13 that the Antichrist is also a war-like figure, not a man of peace, since the peoples ask “Who can make war against the beast?” True Christians during the Tribulation should be able to carefully discern the False Prophet’s occasional lamb-like words (associated in some way with Christian moral principles) from his other war-like, combative, accusatory rhetoric. The latter rhetoric will serve to disprove any supposed authenticity of the lamb-like statements that he makes from time to time, and will show that the False Prophet’s lamb-like facade is only a smokescreen for public consumption, not an indicator of true Christian principles.

                Does Elon Musk match these scriptural descriptions of the False Prophet?

                I do believe that the figure on the current global scene who seems to uncannily match all of these biblical descriptions is none other than Elon Musk. However, as with my post outlining the links between Donald Trump and the biblical Antichrist, I am not claiming 100% certainty that this is indeed a conclusive match. As I did in my initial post, I will simply go down this check-list to determine whether or not Musk matches these descriptions – either based on his current or past actions, or based on how his past behavior indicates he might act in the near future.

 

1.       Musk could be said in some way to arise out of the earth: His Boring Company drills tunnels beneath the earth in an attempt to create an alternative to roads that are located aboveground. Musk’s SpaceX company also sends rockets from the earth into the sky.

2.       Musk seems to have two horns like a lamb, in that he sometimes pays lip service to Christian moral teachings, while at the same time not specifically claiming Jesus as his savior. For example, in an X post a couple of days ago (after the Charlie Kirk memorial in Arizona), Musk wrote this: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” (a clear reference to the Lord’s Prayer, with a notable absence of any mention of God or Jesus Christ). This post from Musk came after Erika Kirk publicly forgave her husband’s (alleged) assassin. Musk has also from time to time publicly paid lip service to the importance of religion. Indeed, he is an advocate of a phenomenon called "cultural Christianity", where (mostly right-wing) figures invoke the moral teachings of the New Testament as being of utilitarian benefit to society – though they do this without also claiming a true faith in the Son and the Father.

3.       Despite this public rhetoric that superficially honors Christianity and Jesus’s teachings, Musk also speaks like a dragon – with deception, hatred and accusations. On the day of Charlie Kirk’s memorial, Musk retweeted this comment on X from an inane far-right commentator who goes by the moniker ‘DC Draino’: “When George Floyd died, BLM organized riots nationwide that killed 25-40 people, injured 900 cops & caused $2 billion in damages. When Charlie Kirk was assassinated, people organized prayer vigils & millions of dollars were raised for his wife & 2 children. We are not the same.” Anyone with a discerning spirit – anyone guided by the Holy Spirit itself – should be able to discern that Musk is engaging here in white nationalist hate speech, portraying black people as being ‘savage’ and ‘uncivilized,’ while the (mostly white) Kirk supporters are lionized as being civilized, peaceful, charitable and responsible ("We" are said to be "not the same" as "them"). Musk is a mouthpiece for the MAGA movement, which, as I’ve pointed out, is a white nationalist hate movement at heart, despite all the Bible-waving window-dressing its spokesmen use to cover up the truth of what they value. Musk even showed up to a public event several years ago wearing a red vest with a goat face of Satan depicted on the back of it. He used a thumbnail photo of this outfit as his Twitter avatar for years before eventually changing it:

Another type and shadow we should mention is that the capsules SpaceX sends up into the heavens are called Dragon capsules (a possible witting reference to the dragon’s war in the heavens in Revelation 12).     

4.       Although Musk officially left his government position as head of D.O.G.E. (the Department of Government Efficiency), this agency is nonetheless still intimately tied into Musk’s public status. There were many claims in the first few months of the Trump 2.0 administration that Elon Musk was actually "President Musk", since he wielded so much authority in deciding what would happen at a federal level, with the shedding of public positions and the defunding of government agencies. This process incurred a wave of attacks on Tesla facilities and electric vehicles in response. It is also possible that Musk will return to wield all the authority of the likely Antichrist (Trump) in an official government capacity in the future, as the two figures apparently buried the hatchet publicly during the Kirk commemoration in Arizona.

5.       Musk has indeed used his enormous public profile to boost Trump’s status in the public eye. He gave many millions of dollars to the Trump ’24 campaign, eagerly retweeted imagery of Trump’s head wound revival in Butler, PA, and in general stokes the rhetoric spouted by so many other bought-and-paid-for MAGA influencers. So, yes, he could be said to promote public worship – or reverence – of our likely Antichrist figure.

6.       Elon Musk makes fire come down from heaven to earth in a literal sense by having SpaceX reusable rockets return back down to earth with their boosters in flames. You can see video of this effect here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYUr-5PYA7s

7.       While Musk doesn’t engage in literally miraculous actions like pulling a rabbit out of an empty hat, he *does* perform signs if we define ‘signs’ as wonders, portents, tokens, or indications. From Neuralink chips implanted in human brains; to rockets launched into space; to self-driving electric vehicles; to the boring of underground tunnels; and to the creation of AI – Musk’s actions are signs or portents of what he prophesies about the future. In his view, the future will be marked by interplanetary travel, the setting up of space colonies, the harnessing of superintelligent artificial intelligence, the replacing of gas-powered vehicles by electric cars, and the melding of machines with humanity through implanted microchips. This is an entirely fanciful and false series of prophecies. We know that the future isn’t going to play out like that, because God simply doesn’t include those things in His own plans for our future. Nevertheless, this real-life ‘Tony Stark’ depicts himself as a sort of superman (ubermensch) saving the planet from its possible future destruction.

8.       Musk’s social media platform X features many deepfake AI videos of Trump. In this way, perhaps we could say that Musk sets up an image that has breath given to it, which MAGA followers worship (or revere).

9.       The one area where I don’t believe we’ve seen a definitive match - *yet* - is the scenario wherein Musk forces the world to take the mark of the beast. Note, however, that Musk’s DOGE agency infiltrated all sorts of government agencies like the Social Security Administration. If Trump decrees usage of a cryptocurrency digital dollar as a future mark of the beast, Musk may be able to utilize his massive companies – which are to a large extent supported by huge amounts of government funding – to involve the world’s population in using it. I know that Musk has speculated in the past about the future ability for the X app to be an integrated banking and social media app. And an ‘X’ is a literal mark (or tav).

10.   Finally, Musk’s far-right white nationalist rhetoric is undeniably war-like, intimidating and demonically inspired.

 

Conclusion

At one point, I suspected that the ‘Q’ figure behind the viral ‘Q-Anon’ conspiracy might match the Bible’s descriptions of the False Prophet. However, it appears that ‘Q’ hasn’t posted in a long time. If he or she (it’s still unclear who the internet posts were coming from) makes his/her way back on the political scene, we might see this figure become another candidate for being the False Prophet. However, since that hasn’t happened, I do believe that Musk himself is the world’s current top candidate for fulfilling this role. I will repeat at this point the disclaimer I gave in my initial post linking Trump with the Antichrist figure: I’m not claiming certainty that this match is an accurate one, and there may be more actions we would need to see from Musk before we can conclusively say that this is the person we’re looking for. But, as with Trump’s case, I do believe that, if Elon Musk isn’t the False Prophet, he’s doing the best imitation of that figure that the world has seen up to this point.