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PORTSIDE CULTURE

IS KIM KARDASHIAN ACTUALLY GOING MAGA?  
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Kyndall Cunningham
February 21, 2025
Vox
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_ The influencer’s love for Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and the
Trump family has some fans wondering. _

Kim Kardashian on the SNL50 red carpet on February 16, 2025. in New
York City. , Ralph Bavaro/NBC via Getty Images

 

Kyndall Cunningham
[[link removed]] is a culture writer
interested in reality TV, movies, pop music, Black media, and
celebrity culture. Previously, she wrote for the Daily Beast and
contributed to several publications, including Vulture, W Magazine,
and Bitch Media.

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Kim Kardashian’s career has been one big guessing game. Since
founding the extremely successful shapewear company Skims
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2019, the reality-star-turned-lifestyle-influencer has embarked on a
number of surprising if not totally puzzling ventures, from trying
to become a lawyer
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starring in a poorly rated season of _American Horror Story_
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filming an eerie “Santa Baby
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to her recent Instagram activity, though, her followers have already
started to suspect her next move.

The theory is that Kardashian is making a rightward turn, cozying up
to those currently in power as she continues to grow her economic
empire and align herself with the world’s most powerful business
leaders. While not a foregone conclusion, it’s all in the tea
leaves. Let’s back up.

Earlier this month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a cheery photo of
himself on Instagram wearing a hoodie that read “Kim is my lawyer
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with the caption “My only appropriate hoodie.” Kardashian
commented with “Hahaha I love it!!!” before sharing the selfie on
her Instagram Stories.

It still isn’t clear what inspired Zuckerberg’s shoutout. Did
family momager Kris Jenner, who’s tagged in the caption, send
Zuckerberg the hoodie? Was this some sort of poorly executed promotion
for Kardashian’s upcoming Ryan Murphy legal drama _All’s Fair_
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Will Kardashian, not actually a member of the bar, be representing
Zuckerberg in his next lawsuit?

Just a few years ago, the queen of selfies having a virtual giggle
with a fellow billionaire like Zuckerberg wouldn’t have raised many
eyebrows. However, Zuckerberg has spent the past year publicly
ingratiating himself to President Donald Trump: altering Facebook’s
speech policies
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his favor, donating to his inauguration fund
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and attending the ceremony
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January.

Along with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla CEO Elon Musk,
Zuckerberg has been labeled a member of the “broligarchy
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a moniker for several tech billionaires trying to curry favor with the
Trump administration with the hopes of influencing deregulation
policies or attaining government power. Musk has already torn through
the federal workforce
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his Department of Government Efficiency.

More damning, though, has been Kardashian’s public ties with Musk,
adding extra suspicion to her recent interaction with Zuckerberg. Last
year, she repeatedly shilled for Musk, who’s had a long, storied
friendship with her ex-husband Kanye West
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In addition to being spotted around Los Angeles in her Tesla
Cybertruck [[link removed]], she
posted the company’s Optimus Bot
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less than two weeks after the presidential election, as well as
staging a bizarre, sexy photoshoot
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android on Instagram. (In a strange effort to stave off backlash,
she clarified that she wasn’t paid to post the robot
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She’s even broadcast her affinity for members of the Trump family.
In addition to her well-documented friendship with Ivanka Trump
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she shared a caption-less photo of first lady Melania Trump
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her Instagram Stories the day of the inauguration. All these pointedly
apolitical but public interactions with Trump’s family and
associates have Kardashian’s followers wondering if she’s
preparing to go all in on the president himself.

In contrast to Trump’s first term, it’s become more common to see
popular celebrities interact with the Trump administration or, at the
very least, withhold critical opinions. A slew of rappers, including
the previously anti-Trump Snoop Dogg
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performed at one of Trump’s inaguruation galas. When asked about
Trump attending the Super Bowl this month, Kansas City Chiefs’
Travis Kelce had nothing but polite words
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offer.

Locating the Kardashian-Jenner clan’s politics has always been a
confusing, maybe even thankless task. Any mention of social issues
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politics
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felt mostly inorganic coming from members of the privileged family,
one of whom unabashedly claimed that they don’t even read the news
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The rest have spent the better part of their careers
offending various
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Nevertheless, the Calabasas influencers rose to power on the internet
in the 2010s, around the same time that social movements like Black
Lives Matter and Me Too were resounding online and demanding the
engagement of celebrities. The family’s proximity to Black culture,
whether through their romantic partners or their affinity for Black
beauty trends, also put them in the position of being pressured to
speak
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racial issues and called out when they didn’t. Arguably, these were
opinions we didn’t actually need to hear
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For the most part, Kardashian has associated herself with left-leaning
politics, using her platforms to support support Black Lives Matter
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for stricter gun laws
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and criticizing the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn _Roe v.
Wade_
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She also supported Hillary Clinton
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the 2016 election.

Notably, she’s the only family member to fold social justice work
into her brand, specifically around criminal justice reform. Beginning
in 2018, she successfully advocated for the release of Alice Marie
Johnson
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Young
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prison. She also helped persuade the Trump administration to sign the
First Step Act
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aimed at changing sentencing laws and decreasing prison populations.
Since then, she’s advocated for the clemency of multiple prisoners
on death row and other incarcerated people, including the Menendez
brothers
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[Kim Kardashian, Ivanka Trump, and Jared Kushner sitting in a row]
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From left, Jared Kushner, Kim Kardashian, and Ivanka Trump at a 2019
White House event for criminal justice reform.

 Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

As witnessed by her prison-reform efforts, she hasn’t been afraid to
do direct business with Trump to advance her own causes. As much good
as Kardashian may have done for the pardoned inmates, the clemency
deal also just happened to redirect attention from her ex-husband’s
comments about slavery
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bring some goodwill to the Kardashian brand.

The world’s most famous business leaders are also making what feels
like a unified move to the right — and being regarded as a serious
player in the business world has long been a concern for Kardashian.
On her Hulu reality show _The Kardashians_, she’s discussed her
obsession with proving herself as a businessperson and her desire to
be seen as a corporate disruptor on the level of a Zuckerberg or Steve
Jobs.

In an episode of season 2, Kardashian says: “All of the big banks
and VCs — everyone says, ‘Apple, Nike, Skims.’ We’re in that
conversation, and it just makes me really proud.”

For a high-powered billionaire like Kardashian, it is perhaps only a
matter of time before she kisses the ring, much the way her techier
brethren have.

It’s not evident that Kardashian personally aligns with the views of
MAGA. Her attendance at a Black business gala
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this month suggests that she’s probably not in support of Trump’s
sweeping anti-DEI agenda. Her own businesses have relied on the
support and compliance of Black and nonwhite celebrities and models,
who are often featured in her Skims and KKW beauty campaigns. Plus, it
arguably still wouldn’t be the smartest move for a reality star
trying to earn their stripes in Hollywood to start donning a red cap.

Whatever Kardashian’s intentions, her attempts to appeal to both
sides of the aisle have already been undermined. The same day that
Kardashian posted a photo of Melania Trump’s inauguration outfit on
Instagram, President Trump signed an executive order titled
“Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety
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a direct blow to the prison reform efforts she’s been fighting for
for years.

* kim Kardashian
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* Trump
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* Jacobin magazine
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* skims
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* criminal justice reform
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