For a guy who has spent his entire life making “I am very rich” the keystone of his personal brand, there is something quite poignant about watching Donald Trump get financially cucked by Elon Musk on stage every night. Musk is much younger, much richer, and has had a much more successful series of hair transplants. But needs must, it seems.

As you might be aware, Musk has recently decided to update the tired dystopian fiction trope in which impoverished citizens are forced to compete in deadly gameshows where the winner gets a life-changingly glittering prize, and the losers are killed for sport. In Elon’s rebooted version, the richest man in the world is giving struggling voters the chance to win a million dollars if they sign a “petition” in favour of free speech and the right to bear arms.

You get $47 (£36) just for signing up – $100 in Pennsylvania, for some reason! – and only registered voters can apply. As long as they leave their names – and addresses, for some reason! – they’re all good to enter the lottery pit. Also, it’s not fictional but real, and it’s happening in swing states every single day from now until the election in two weeks’ time. On Saturday, Musk presented his first state-of-the-art cardboard cheque for $1m to a man at a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. On Sunday, it was the turn of a woman at a town hall in Pittsburgh. On Monday, his Pac (political action committee) launched a drive against........

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