As if listening to incoming US President Donald Trump wasn’t enough, tech billionaire Elon Musk has been on a tear this week, attacking European politicians on the left and right and using posts on his social media platform, X, to disrupt politics across the continent.
The French president, politicians in Germany and European Commission officials have all felt Musk’s online wrath, over questions about their electability and alleged hypocrisy. However, his harsh attacks on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other British politicians stood out.
In a 72-hour period starting at the weekend, Musk suggested that King Charles should fire Starmer and call a new election, and falsely claimed that Starmer was “deeply complicit in mass rape” and should be sent to prison.
Musk also announced that the United States could “liberate” the British people from their “tyrannical government.”
The charges centered on Starmer’s role in an ugly chapter of recent British judicial history, involving the prosecution of gangs of mostly British Pakistani men who groomed and sexually exploited thousands of girls between around 1997 and 2013.
Starmer was the head of the Crown Prosecution Service starting in 2008 and oversaw many prosecutions. Musk, without any evidence and in the face of repeated inquiries that said otherwise, blamed Starmer for the inaction.
The 2022 investigation led by Scottish child protection expert Prof. Alexis Jay concluded that local authorities – but not Starmer – were at fault, even though there was no prosecutorial cover-up.
In recent days, Elon Musk has taken to X to criticize the British government’s handling of the historic child grooming scandal. British Health Secretary Wes Streeting said Musk’s views were ‘misjudged and certainly misinformed.’ Musk recently expressed his support for Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, the founder of the far-right English Defense League.
Musk also took a swipe at Jess Phillips, the Labor government minister now in charge of protecting women, calling her a “rape genocide” apologist for refusing to heed calls for another national inquiry – although Jay said a new inquiry would only delay the implementation of her recommendations. report.
Long-time observer of British politics Tim Bale at London’s Queen Mary University says Musk’s inflammatory accusations have put Labor on the defensive and given new ammunition to opponents on the political right.
“In all my years of covering British politics, I can’t recall an incident like this,” Bale told CBC News. “[Musk’s] The goal appears 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 are causing concern
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, as elections are coming up in February and Chancellor Olaf Scholz is expected to suffer defeat.
Musk has backed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and said he plans to use X to host a debate with its leader, Alice Weidel, who is a fierce critic of multiculturalism. Some prominent members of the AfD were excommunicated for failing to condemn the war crimes of the Nazis.
On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron criticized Musk for “direct intervention” 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.
Reuters quoted Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre as saying that Musk’s political influence had become deeply worrying, and a Spanish government spokesman said on Tuesday that social media platforms must always operate with “absolute neutrality”.
Bale says the goal of Musk’s intervention could be to force hostile European governments to drop tougher laws that could hurt tech companies. The United Kingdom, for example, has just passed a new digital regulation law with increased oversight of large tech companies and their business models.
“Perhaps [Musk is] will make it harder for the UK government to regulate social media platforms,” Bale said.
The German government is accusing Elon Musk of trying to influence their upcoming elections after he expressed support for the far-right AfD party in an op-ed. Musk’s comment 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.
Fighting Farage
But friendly relations with Musk do not seem to be a guarantee that we will avoid his wrath.
Nigel Farage, the head of Reform UK who had lunch at Trump’s Mar-a-Largo estate with Musk just three weeks ago and expected the tech mogul to make a big donation to his increasingly popular party, suddenly found himself out, as Musk called it, to be ousted. from the position of party leader.
UK reform advocates policies such as major cuts to immigration, the elimination of net zero emissions targets and drastic cuts in taxes and spending.
The rift between the two 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 multiple prison terms, including for fraud and contempt of court.
Both Farage and Starmer — who rarely agree on much — argue that Robinson’s use of Facebook Live and ignoring a judge’s order to broadcast banned details of the 2018 sex-exploitation case in the Huddersfield community almost resulted in the mistrial.
Farage, who has been trying to soften the image of his Reform Britain to attract more Conservative supporters, said courting Robinson could cause “enormous damage” to his party. But Musk has chirped Robinson deserves to be freed – and that Farage should be fired.
Starmer claps back
In one of his sharpest public statements since becoming prime minister last summer, Starmer lashed out 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 play out many times, with intimidation and threats of violence, hoping the media will amplify it,” Starmer said. “When far-right venom leads to serious threats against Jess Phillips and others, that’s when the line is crossed in my book.”
Many in the UK have also blamed Musk for inflaming tempers and inciting violence following the murders of three young people at a dance class in Southport, England, this summer. Musk retweeted conspiracy theories from far-right reports linking the incident to mass immigration, saying a “civil war” in the UK was inevitable.
It is difficult to assess how popular Musk’s interventions are with the British public. Following Musk’s social media attacks, pollster YouGov republished 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 cause damage.
A Labor government minister appears to have responded to Musk’s recent allegations announcing that people who do not report sexual abuse of children may face criminal prosecution as part of the new law that will be introduced later in 2025 — is one of the recommendations in the report of prof. Jaya.
For Starmer and other European politicians, attacking Musk carries risks, says Bale of Saint Mary’s.
“They know that Musk is very close to Trump and if they insult Musk, they could turn Trump against them.”
