Recent reports indicate that that Elon Musk, one of the world’s richest men and close confidant of President-elect Donald Trump, is preparing an eye-watering donation to Nigel Farage’s far-right populist party Reform UK. Labour’s decision up until now to dismiss Musk’s inflammatory comments begs the question of what Labour’s plan is for Musk? Should the Government act decisively on what is arguably foreign interference in our political system? Or should they play the long game, assume it is bluster, and perhaps wait for the inevitable far-right infighting?
Rise of ‘President’ Musk
Musk publicly declared himself a Republican in May 2022 and purchased Twitter (now X) in October 2022. The Tesla and Space X billionaire has been central to a race to the bottom in political discourse, from attacks on Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in 2016 & 2020, to ‘President Musk’ in 2024.
Given his influence on Donald Trump’s administration (including heading up his own pretend Governmental department, DOGE), it is not an exaggeration to say that Musk’s newfound political influence is based on two key factors: his wealth and his courting of American far right movements. His refusal to remove or moderate accounts has significantly altered the nature of X. Since his takeover of Twitter, the site has become a swamp of hate-speech and misinformation. Indeed, over the past two years Musk himself often makes over 100 posts on X a day to his 200 million followers and has signal-boosted many of these far right accounts himself.
Musk and the UK dynamic
Recently, the real impact of Musk’s status as a social media mogul and leading MAGA voice is being seen in the UK. Obviously, Musk’s position as key financier of Donald Trump’s winning presidential campaign has bought him the loyalty of the US President and has already affected UK politics greatly from a geopolitical point of view. But we are now seeing more and more of Musk utilising his social media platform to meddle directly in the affairs of foreign nations.
Last summer’s riots in the UK are highly likely to have been fuelled by misinformation on X and large far-right accounts. Musk himself waded into the discourse, parroting the ‘two-tier policing’ conspiracy theory being spread at the time by the UK far-right.
Alarmingly, he also claimed that “civil war [in the UK] is inevitable”. Labour simply condemned the comments. However, this was only the start of the current Musk/UK dynamic.
The cycle goes as follows: An event happens in the UK; Musk makes a comment on it, usually something explicitly anti-Starmer, often a Reform UK talking point, or just downright misinformation; this fuels far-right accounts, leading to reporting in the UK mainstream media; this, in turn, helps to legitimise Musk’s comments and creates significant additional publicity.
We have most recently seen this with the re-emergence of calls for an independent enquiry into the failure by the police to tackle grooming gangs over the past couple of decades. It’s a topic that, whilst incredibly serious (and perhaps another enquiry into the handling of sexual abuse by the police should take place), remains a key talking point of the UK far-right.
A disturbing offensive
With the subsequent rejection of a new enquiry by Labour’s Jess Phillips, Musk and the UK right launched a disturbing offensive over the course of a couple of days stating that Jess Phillips should be sent to prison, the UK should release Tommy Robinson, the grooming gangs were all Keir Starmer’s fault in his previous position as Director of the Crown Prosecution Service, and that King Charles should dissolve the UK parliament.
This is extremely alarming and irrational rhetoric which nevertheless has been taken very seriously by the media in the UK. As ever, when discussing the right-wing over the past few years, it simply is not normal.
The donation – will it happen?
Extreme, highly visible rhetoric on social media by a de-facto member of the US President-elect’s administration is one thing. But funding is make-or-break for political parties, campaigns and movements. In November 2024, it was rumoured that Musk was ready to table a massive donation to Reform UK, with the figure reported as high as $100 million. This is more than the sum of all other donations made in all of UK politics in 2024. Being offered by one far-right movement from abroad to another UK-based movement, it’s extremely difficult to call it anything else than foreign interference.
Musk, in his current position as a Trump confidant (for however long that lasts), is effectively an oligarch. He has the ear of Trump, he has a soon-to-be governmental ‘department’ in which he will be tasked with calling out other, actual Government departments on spending, likely over social media. He has already spent an unfathomable amount backing Trump and is now looking at backing certain parties across the rest of the world. And he has an audience of over 200 million people on X.
It’s a crude comparison, and one that’s been made before, but if Elon Musk were a Russian oligarch we’d be asking the elected government to intervene. Yes, there are political elements to this. The United States has always been a close ally of the UK, and clearly Labour doesn’t want to upset Trump before he has even taken office by tackling his current best-friend Elon Musk. And, after all, Musk’s wealth and financial interests lie in legitimate companies such as Tesla and SpaceX.
The Labour government’s principal economic ambitions require foreign investment in the UK economy to boost growth. It is risky to sour relations with Trump and with Musk in particular, given his economic power and erratic behaviour. Labour seem to be walking a tightrope of considering capping foreign donations,which would be the right move to protect UK democracy, or potentially hoping to keep Musk (and subsequently Trump) in their good books by ignoring it.
No compromise
Worse still is entertaining an outdated notion that Labour can stem the rise of right-wing populists by simply “defeating their arguments”, a move that didn’t work so well for the Democrats in the United States. Their campaign repeatedly failed to tackle the flagrant rule-breaking of Trump and allowed the right wing to capture enormous swathes of both traditional and alternative media, leading to large losses in the presidential election.
The idea that you can defeat the arguments of far-right populism is noble, because in isolation, you can. Their arguments are based on misinformation, outlandish claims, and appeals to emotion. But when those arguments are laundered through right-wing media and campaigning, using enormous sums of right-wing money, there’s no amount of debate that can turn the tide. Compare the average political conversation in the US from 2016 to 2024 which is one dominated by conspiracism and toxic discourse. It may be argued that those voting Republican believe in an almost entirely different reality from anyone else.
Elon Musk is not a character you can appease. The same could be said of the entire MAGA movement. Whilst Musk doesn’t seem particularly to believe in the talking points of MAGA (he just says what he says for attention) he shares the same erratic sense of ‘all-in’ as the wider movement. Unless you are ‘all-in’ on their policy positions there will be no compromise from them. Countless moderate Republicans since 2016 have learnt this the hard way, trying to mollify Trump until they simply can’t agree with him anymore, at which point they’re discarded.
Will the Musk-Farage relationship endure?
There is simply no better example of Musk’s erratic behaviour than the recent news that Musk has called for Farage himself to step down as leader of Reform UK, despite their month-long courtship. The reason for this dramatic break-up? Musk’s constant backing of the imprisoned far-right thug, Tommy Robinson. This is a bridge too far for Farage who cannot be seen to back Robinson. Yet for Musk, who cannot compromise, this is enough for him to deride Farage publicly. It is extraordinary, and an textbook example of the dangers of courting such an erratic and aggressive populist.
All talk of the donation may, at time of writing, be moot following the falling-out. Labour may have been able to ride out a potential storm this time around, but it is only really the start of Musk’s meddling in UK politics. He is already praising Kemi Badenoch and suggesting the potential of Rupert Lowe leading Reform, trying to sound out which political figures of the UK right will make the better future ‘ally’.
Almost every tweet he makes about the UK will hit UK headlines. Ultimately though, since Musk’s influence is largely based upon his wealth, the endgame of any political influencing will almost certainly be financial in nature. Labour may enjoy a short respite perhaps, but the issue of donations to the right will come around again. They must use early 2025 to take this issue seriously and cap foreign donations.
The money potentially on the table for right-wing populist movements is staggering, and almost certainly ‘needle-moving’. To ignore it is perilous. Lessons should be learnt from the last 4 years of Biden’s presidency, the refusal to act meaningfully on key right-wing milestones such as January 6th, Trump’s endless court cases, and the almost complete capture of alternative online media by the right-wing.
Barring an enormous split between Musk and Trump (which may happen), Musk will be at the heart of right-wing populism in the US and UK for the next few years. Labour needs to be equipped to deal with the unprecedented level of aggression shown by populist voices over the past year as it will continue long into this UK Parliamentary term.
We want to hear your views. Please send any comments to editor@westenglandbylines.co.uk
