As if the ear of incoming US President Donald Trump wasn’t enough, tech billionaire Elon Musk has been on a tear this week, lashing out at European politicians on both the left and right and using posts on the platform of his social media, X, for him. disrupt politics across the continent.
The French president, politicians in Germany and European Commission officials have all felt Musk’s wrath online, over issues related to their election and alleged hypocrisy. But it is his pointed attacks on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other UK politicians that have caught the eye.
In a 72-hour span starting over the weekend, Musk suggested that King Charles fire Starmer and call a new election, and pushed the false claim that Starmer was “deeply complicit in mass rape” and should be sent to prison.
Musk also tweeted that it may be up to the United States to “liberate” the British from their “tyrannical government.”
The allegations have centered on Starmer’s role in an ugly chapter of Britain’s recent judicial history, relating to the prosecution of gangs of mainly British Pakistani men who groomed and sexually exploited thousands of girls between 1997 and 2013.
Starmer was the head of the country’s Crown prosecution system starting in 2008 and oversaw many of the prosecutions. Musk, without any evidence and in the face of repeated investigations to the contrary, has blamed Starmer for inaction.
A 2022 inquiry led by Scottish child protection expert Prof. Alexis Jay, concluded that while there was no prosecutorial cover-up, local authorities – but not Starmer – had made mistakes.
In recent days, Elon Musk posted on X to criticize the UK government’s handling of a historic child care scandal. UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting said Musk’s views were ‘misjudged and certainly misinformed’. Musk also recently expressed support for Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, the founder of the far-right English Defense League.
Musk also insulted Jess Phillips, the Labor cabinet minister now responsible for protecting women, calling her an apologist for “rape genocide” for refusing to respond to calls for another national inquiry – even though Jay has said that a new investigation would only delay the implementation of the recommendations from its report.
Long-time observer of UK politics Tim Bale at Queen Mary University of London says Musk’s inflammatory accusations have put Labor on the defensive and provided fresh ammunition for opponents on the political right.
“In all my years of covering British politics, I can’t remember an incident like this,” Bale told CBC News. “Musk’s goal seems to be to destabilize the British government and also to emphasize to Donald Trump that this is not an administration he wants to be friends with.
France and Norway raise concerns
Starmer’s Labor Party is one of the few centre-left governments left in Europe, with recent elections witnessing seismic shifts to the right, including in Italy, Slovakia and the Netherlands.
Germany’s Social Democrats could be the next to fall, with elections coming up in February and Chancellor Olaf Scholz widely expected to lose.
Musk has backed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and said he plans to use X to organize a discussion with its leader, Alice Weidel, who is a fierce critic of multiculturalism. Several prominent members of the AfD have been expelled for their failure to condemn Nazi war crimes.
On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron criticized Musk for “direct interference” in European elections. Other EU leaders want to see regulators impose fines and other legal sanctions on Musk for improper use of his social media platform.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre was quoted by Reuters as saying that Musk’s political influence has become deeply worrying, and a Spanish government spokesman said on Tuesday that social media platforms must always act with “absolute neutrality”.
Bale says the goal of Musk’s intervention may be to force unfriendly European governments to back away from tougher legislation that could hurt tech companies. The United Kingdom, for example, has just introduced a new digital regulatory act with strengthened oversight of large technology companies and their business models.
“Maybe (Musk) will make it harder for the British government to regulate social media platforms,” Bale said.
The German government is accusing Elon Musk of trying to influence their upcoming election after he expressed support for the far-right AfD party in an op-ed. Musk’s option was published in the Welt am Sonntag newspaper over the weekend and was met with criticism from politicians and the resignation of the paper’s opinion editor.
Battling Farage
But being on friendly terms with Musk seems no guarantee of avoiding his wrath.
Nigel Farage, the UK Reform leader who just three weeks ago dined at Trump’s Mar-a-Largo estate with Musk and expected the tech mogul to make a big donation to his ever-present party and more popular, suddenly found himself out, as Musk called it, to be replaced as party chairman.
UK reform supports policies such as deep cuts to immigration, scrapping net zero emissions targets and drastically cutting taxes and spending.
The rift between the two men appears to stem from Musk’s insistence that far-right activist and anti-Islam crusader Tommy Robinson be released from prison. Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, is a former member of an openly fascist British political party who has served numerous prison terms, including for fraud and contempt of court.
Both Farage and Starmer – who rarely agree on much – claim that Robinson’s use of Facebook Live and breach of a judge’s order by broadcasting banned details of a 2018 sexual abuse case in the Huddersfield community almost resulted in an abuse.
Farage, who has tried to moderate the UK’s Reform image to attract more Tory supporters, has said the meeting with Robinson could cause “huge damage” to his party. But Musk has tweeted that Robinson deserves to be freed – and that Farage should be sacked.
Starmer claps again
In one of his strongest public statements since becoming prime minister last summer, Starmer took aim at Musk on Tuesday, accusing the world’s richest man of spreading lies.
“I’m prepared to call this for what it is. We’ve seen this playbook many times, inciting intimidation and threats of violence, hoping the media will amplify it,” Starmer said. “When the venom of the far right leads to serious threats against Jess Phillips and others, then in my book, a line has been crossed.”
Many in the UK also blamed Musk for igniting tempers and inciting violence after the killing of three young people at a dance class in Southport, England, this summer. Musk retweeted conspiracy theories from far-right accounts linking the incident to mass immigration, declaring that “civil war” in the UK was inevitable.
It’s hard to gauge how much traction Musk’s interventions are getting with the British public. Following Musk’s attacks on social media, pollster YouGov reposted its latest poll from November, highlighting that at the time, Musk was unpopular with 64 percent of the British public.
On the other hand, the Labor Party may be concerned that Musk’s attacks – whether true or not – could still cause harm.
A Labor cabinet minister responded to Musk’s latest allegations by announcing that people who do not report child sexual abuse could face prosecution as part of a new law to be introduced later in 2025 – one of the recommendations in the report of Prof. Jay.
For Starmer and other European politicians, attacking Musk comes with risks, says Bale of Saint Mary’s.
“They know that Musk is really close to Trump, and by offending Musk, they can turn Trump against them.”
