While Keir Starmer was trying to enjoy a family holiday in Madeira over the new year, Elon Musk was trying to spoil it. The world’s richest man has been using X to lob insults and slurs in the direction of the prime minister, while teasing the prospect of donating tens of millions of dollars to the Reform UK party.
This potentially gamechanging money has meant his comments – which have been compared to those of a “pub bore” by some users on his own social media platform – have provoked (arguably unmerited) political reaction and media debate. So what issues have been enraging Musk?
Grooming gangs
It was New Year’s Eve and 5.48 in the morning in London when Musk turned his attention to the “Pakistani-ancestry grooming gangs”, an issue to which he seems to have been new. An account on X, with just over 1,500 followers, had posted a screenshot of the sentencing remarks of the judge Peter Rook QC in June 2013 after the conviction of five men involved in the exploitation and horrific abuse of young girls in the Oxford area.
The screenshot containing details of hideous crimes had been reposted by an account with a larger following, with the additional comment that “out of political correctness the government did everything it could to cover up the crimes”. It is unclear to what government involvement the account was referring. Past criticism had focused on Oxfordshire county council and the local police. Nevertheless, Musk promoted the post to his 210 million followers.
“The government officials responsible, including those in the judiciary, need to fired (sic) in shame over this,” he wrote. The billionaire Tesla owner became momentarily distracted by Joe Biden’s mental health but he then moved on to retweet an old video of Tommy Robinson, a convicted fraudster whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, during one of his previous spells in prison.
Tommy Robinson
Robinson is serving an 18 month custodial sentence for contempt of court for repeating false allegations against a Syrian refugee, in breach of an injunction. Musk commented: “Why are rapists given suspended sentences in the UK, but this guy gets 18 months in solitary confinement, despite doing nothing violent?” A torrent of similarly framed tweets followed.
GB News then reported that the minister for safeguarding, Jess Phillips, had rejected a request last year from Oldham council for a public inquiry into another grooming scandal. “Shameful,” Musk tweeted. Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions, was accused, without evidence, of being part of a cover-up. Now, it was the turn of Kemi Badenoch to wade in.
An inquiry into the child grooming gangs was “long over due”, the Tory leader and former cabinet minister said. “Trials have taken place all over the country in recent years but no one in authority has joined the dots,” she said.
It subsequently emerged that the last Conservative government had also rejected calls for a public inquiry. “Why?” tweeted Musk.
Reform UK
Musk’s determination to put a plague on both the Tory and Labour houses may well become a pressing problem for Starmer and Badenoch in 2025. “Britain needs Reform now,” Musk tweeted on 2 January. Rupert Lowe, the 67-year-old Reform MP for Great Yarmouth, might have been somewhat surprised by the sudden attention he was receiving on social media at the start of the new year. Musk promoted two of his tweets. He did the same for Badenoch’s former rival for the Tory leadership, Robert Jenrick, an immigration hardliner, after he wrote an article for the Telegraph entitled: “The truth about grooming gangs is finally coming out.”
The leader of Reform UK, Nigel Farage, has let it be known that Musk is contemplating a sizeable donation to his party. Badenoch has said she does not believe it. She may have been given food for thought last month when Musk posed alongside Farage and his billionaire treasurer, Nick Candy, at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
The economy
Starmer’s approach to Musk’s invective has been to stay quiet. Not so the health secretary, Wes Streeting, who described Musk’s comments as “misjudged and certainly misinformed” on Friday, but asked him to “work with us”.
And his attacks on the British economy did elicit a response from Downing Street. Musk claimed that “very few” businesses wanted to invest in Labour’s Britain. Downing Street rose to the bait, with a spokesperson commenting that business investment in the third quarter this year was estimated to have increased by 4.5% compared with this time last year.
Musk, however, used his digital loudhailer to double down on his attack. “Starmer was complicit in the RAPE OF BRITAIN when he was head of Crown Prosecution for 6 years,” tweeted Musk on Friday. “Starmer must go and he must face charges for his complicity in the worst mass crime in the history of Britain.”