Elon Musk’s recent obsession with UK politics is fueling a string of popular accounts on his social media platform X, which the billionaire appears to be turning to for information on the groom gang scandal and Sir Keir Starmer’s record as a prosecutor.
An analysis of the entrepreneur’s feed by the Financial Times found that Musk — whose attacks on the British prime minister and senior politicians have become more strident over the past week — has amplified or responded to several X accounts that have posted extensively about the country’s handling of historic sex crimes.
They include Viségrad 24 — an account with more than 1.2 million followers run by British-born Stefan Tompson — social media personality Mario Nawfal and Malaysian influencer Ian Miles Cheong, along with several less popular right-wing accounts reportedly based in the UK.
Posts on accounts Musk worked with blamed “British political elite” for covering up the scandal, and referred to “terrible failures” by the prosecutor, stating that “turned a blind eye to the rape of children“.
Bills quoted excerpts from British newspaper reports, and summarize findings from previous research on the issue, mostly without linking to the source material or providing further context.
They also pointed out isolated passages from the so-called book Easy Meat: Multiculturalism, Islam and Child Sexual Slaverywithout mentioning the name of the publication. One post connected to the testimony of Samantha Smith, a survivor from Telford, who said that British police asked her if she had consented to sexual activity, even though she was five years old when she was first abused.
The posts appear to have prompted Musk — who has more than 211 million followers on X and has used his online pulpit to champion conservative cultural views — to step up his attacks on Starmer and British Defense Secretary Jess Phillips over the past week, saying they failed to call to the responsibility of the leaders of sexual grooming gangs in England because the perpetrators were of Pakistani origin.
Musk’s posts have pushed the looming scandal to the top of the UK news agenda and led to renewed calls for action, with Conservative MPs trying to force a vote on whether to launch a new investigation. Professor Alexis Jaythe head of the original investigation, intervened, saying that it would be better to implement the measures already recommended.
Musk, the world’s richest man, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Saturday, Nawfal announced that Phillips had “rejected a wider investigation into Oldham’s gang-rapes”, to which Musk responded by calling her a “wicked witch”. He too answered to an earlier post by the influencer — who often jumps on high-profile news events and with whom Musk has long collaborated — who argued that “cultural sensitivities” took priority over the pursuit of justice, calling the alleged cover-up “unconscionable.”
In the past week, Musk has retweeted Nawfal nearly 40 times. The 53-year-old billionaire posted or reposted 616 times on X in the same period, at least 225 of which were about British politics, according to an FT analysis as of Wednesday morning. Including replies, he published more than 1,180 posts in seven days.
Musk, who spent more than $250 million supporting Donald Trump’s campaign, has been a near-constant presence at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago home for the past two months, joining talks with world leaders and criticizing the governments of Germany and Canada. .
He claimed that Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions in England and Wales, was “deeply complicit in mass rapes in exchange for votes”.
He also called on the king to dissolve parliament and call new elections.
One person who communicated with Musk this week said he did not rely on conversations with the UK source for his information, preferring to do his own research online. Others close to the billionaire said they believed his anger was largely fueled by posts from social media accounts Musk doesn’t follow directly, but which appear on his algorithmically curated “for you” feed on Xu.
Questions about which individuals or organizations color Musk’s view of the British government have also preoccupied some British officials.
A few believe that a small group of conservative-leaning British commentators and analysts based in the US are shaping views of the UK among a wider milieu of Trump allies.
“There’s quite a right-wing libertarian British émigré network in the US that feeds a lot,” said one British government official, adding that those free-speech advocates are linked to right-wing US think tanks that project an image of the UK as “uber woke”.
Officials said they included Douglas Murray, a neocon author who has written books on the decline of the West and “Islamophilia” that Musk mentioned in tweets about the groom scandal, and Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Freedom Center in DC. with the headquarters of the Heritage Foundation.
Another UK official said the growth of Islam in the UK was another key issue being pushed by influential US-based British commentators, noting that last month UK media stories about “Muhammad” becoming the most popular name for boys in England and Wales were widespread. among Mag figures on Xu and other social networks.
In the past week, Musk has also stepped up posts about the grooming scandal from former Prime Minister Liz Truss, former Labor MP Kate Hoey, former reformist politician Ben Habib and people associated with broadcaster GB News. He boosted several positions of Reform MP Rupert Lowe, who he suggested should replace Nigel Farage as party leader.
But Musk also endorsed posts from smaller accounts, including some supporters of far-right figure Tommy Robinson, who claimed that Starmer “no sympathy whatsoever for the English working class”among other charges. None of the accounts appear to be following Musk.
X allows users to switch between a feed of just the accounts they follow and an algorithmic feed, called “For You,” that shows content that might match their interests and past activity. The more content Musk engages with about the UK from far-right or niche sources, the more similar content he will be served up on his “For You” page, according to experts.
“Musk appears to have become the first tech leader to fall down the rabbit hole of radicalization with his own product,” said Bruce Daisley, the former head of Twitter’s Europe, Middle East and Africa operations.
He said TikTok, which also has a version of the algorithmically curated “For You” page, is “far optimized for fun, surprise and entertainment.” Meanwhile, Musk “simultaneously says ‘let’s post more positive things’ and then retweets extremists from Britain First and Tommy Robinson,” he added.
dr. Jen Golbeck, a professor at the University of Maryland, College Park who focuses on social media and extremism, said the ease with which users can pay for a subscription to the Xa service, and consequently be more prominent in their users’ feeds, has come into play. a large role in increasing the number of accounts that publish incorrect information.
“On the algorithmic side, I think a really important feature is the increase in blue checks,” she said, referring to X users with X Premium subscriptions, marked by a blue tick on their profiles. Musk’s change in the X vetting process meant he was more likely to see posts from people who “shared his increasingly radical ideology,” Golbeck added.
On Tuesday, Musk said he had a personal reason to be interested in the UK, announcing that his British grandmother, Cora Amelia Robinson, “grew up in very poor England” and was important to him as a child.
“My Nana was one of those poor, unprotected working-class girls who might have been kidnapped in today’s Britain,” Musk claimed.
