Elon Musk — he who showed up to the first cabinet meeting of Donald Trump’s second term wearing a “TECH SUPPORT” T-shirt, a Tesla belt buckle and a Maga hat — would like to talk to us about fashion.
“Fashion in 2026 still looks like 2006,” he posted on his social media platform, X, last week. “Time for change!” It wasn’t the first time that the near-trillionaire (and parody T-shirt-and-suit devotee) has pronounced on the stagnation of style; he made similar comments on The Katie Miller Podcast in December.
But while in fashion terms Musk is what one might refer to as an NPC (a gaming term denoting a “non-player character”), it is hard to disagree. Take a look at footage of any major western city from 2006 and you will see very little difference from the way people look today. If we were to teleport back, the only thing we might find unusual would be people looking at each other rather than at their smartphones.