With no new messages from Q in virtually three years and former US President Donald Trump going through mounting authorized woes, one would suppose that the QAnon political conspiracy was dropping steam. But, on November 22, Elon Musk could have renewed hope for conspiracists world wide: As the US was getting ready for Thanksgiving, Musk tweeted “Q*Anon” out to his 164.5 million followers.

Musk’s submit, which has been seen 7.8 million occasions, linked to a narrative referencing a secret OpenAI mission often known as Q* (pronounced Q star). Instantly, the web areas the place QAnon nonetheless prospers—message boards, Telegram, and X itself—lit up with excited believers cheering Musk’s submit. They claimed it was an endorsement of their worldview and, regardless of years of failed guarantees, affirmation that they had been on the precise path.

“Let’s gooooooo,” wrote Erica, a member of a outstanding QAnon channel on Telegram, in response to Musk’s submit. “The sheep will read QAnon [and] hopefully they’ll ask themselves why he did it, and look for answers, same way we all did,” a QAnon believer wrote on Truth Social. “Loud and Clear,” one other wrote on X in a reply to Musk’s submit.

Other QAnon figures flagged that the best way Musk wrote QAnon—with a star image between Q and Anon—was a reference to the oft-used, and inaccurate, chorus throughout the neighborhood that claims the phrase QAnon is a media construction. “The asterisk separates Q and Anon,” an X consumer wrote in response to Musk’s submit, “He knows exactly what he’s doing.” “Message received,” one other wrote. On QAnon Telegram channels over the weekend, Musk’s current posts had been dissected as if there have been messages written instantly by Q, and a few customers decoded the dates and occasions of Musk’s posts on Twitter to try to discern a hidden that means. QAnon believers additionally shared more and more radical conspiracies about Musk, together with obvious hyperlinks between Musk’s tweet and the involvement of AI within the 2024 election. The identical platforms the place these discussions are occurring had been additionally main vectors for election conspiracies in 2020.

With the 2024 election now lower than a yr away, and virtually 1 / 4 of the nation believing in some aspects of QAnon, it’s clear that the conspiracy motion may play a key position: Trump continues to court the group’s attention; considered one of their very own, the QAnon Shaman, is now running for Congress; and, simply final week, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a US consultant from Georgia, appeared on one of the most popular online QAnon shows and mentioned the conspiracy that the FBI was behind the January 6 assault on the Capitol. On X, the conspiracy and its promoters have flourished since Musk took management of the corporate final November. And now, Musk’s use of the time period QAnon serves because the X proprietor’s most express endorsement of the motion to this point.

Musk’s supporters had been fast to defend his reference to QAnon, claiming within the replies that this was simply Musk trolling. Even if he was, that doesn’t actually matter: QAnon adherents see it not as a joke, however as a wholehearted endorsement from one of the highly effective folks on the planet. “While Musk isn’t explicitly endorsing QAnon, he’s making a thoughtless joke that Q believers will absolutely interpret as an endorsement,” Mike Rothschild, the writer of The Storm Is Upon Us, a guide about QAnon, wrote on X.