As if just listening to future US President Donald Trump wasn't enough, tech billionaire Elon Musk went on a rampage this week, smearing European politicians on both the left and right and using posts on his social media platform X to disrupt politics across the globe. continent.
The French president, politicians in Germany and European Commission officials have felt Musk's online wrath over issues relating to their electability and alleged hypocrisy. But what stands out the most is his withering attacks on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other British politicians.
In the 72 hours starting over the weekend, Musk suggested to King Charles that Starmer be fired and call a new election, and also made the false claim that Starmer was “deeply complicit in mass rapes” and should be jailed.
Musk also wrote that it could be up to the United States to “liberate” the British people from their “tyrannical government.”
These accusations focused on Starmer's role in an ugly chapter in recent British judicial history, prosecuting gangs of mainly British Pakistani men who groomed and sexually abused thousands of girls between 1997 and 2013.
Starmer had been head of the country's Crown Prosecution System since 2008 and oversaw many criminal prosecutions. Musk, without any evidence and in the face of repeated investigations to the contrary, blames Starmer for inaction.
A 2022 inquiry led by Scottish child protection expert Prof. Alexis Jay, showed that while there was no cover-up by prosecutors, local authorities – but not Starmer – made mistakes.
In recent days, Elon Musk posted on X in which he criticized the British government's handling of the historic child grooming scandal. UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting said Musk's views were “misjudged and certainly misled.” 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 denigrated Jess Phillips, the Labor cabinet minister currently responsible for protecting women, calling her a “rape genocide” apologist for refusing to heed calls for another nationwide inquiry – even though Jay said a new inquiry would only delay implementation of the recommendations of her report.
Longtime observer of UK politics Tim Bale of Queen Mary University of London says Musk's inflammatory accusations have put the Labor Party on the defensive and provided new ammunition for opponents on the political right.
“In all my years of being involved in British politics, I can't remember an incident like this,” Bale told CBC News. “(Musk's) 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 express concerns
Starmer's Labor Party is one of the few left-of-centre governments remaining in Europe, and the last election saw a sharp shift to the right, including in Italy, Slovakia and the Netherlands.
Germany's Social Democrats may be the next to fall – elections will be held in February and Chancellor Olaf Scholz is widely expected to fail.
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. Some prominent AfD members do excluded for failing to condemn Nazi war crimes.
On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron sharply criticized Musk for “direct intervention” in European elections. Other EU leaders want regulators to impose fines and other legal sanctions on Musk for misusing his social media platform.
Reuters quoted Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre as saying Musk's political influence had become deeply concerning, and a Spanish government spokesman said on Tuesday that social media platforms must always act with “complete neutrality.”
Bale says the goal of Musk's intervention could be to force unfriendly European governments to roll back stricter regulations that could hurt tech companies. For example, the UK has just introduced a new Digital Regulation Act, providing enhanced oversight of large technology companies and their business models.
“Perhaps (Musk) will make it more difficult for the British government to regulate social media platforms,” Bale said.
The German government accuses Elon Musk of trying to influence the upcoming elections after he expressed support for the far-right AfD party in an article. Musk's article was published over the weekend in the Welt am Sonntag newspaper and was met with criticism from politicians and the resignation of the newspaper's opinion editor.
Fighting Farage
However, a friendly relationship with Musk does not seem to be a guarantee of avoiding his wrath.
Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, who just three weeks ago had lunch with Musk at Trump's Mar-a-Largo estate and expected the tech mogul to make a large donation to his increasingly popular party, suddenly found himself outside Musk called to replace him as party leader.
Reform UK policies that favor deep cuts in immigration, eliminating 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 militant 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 sentences, including for fraud and contempt of court.
Both Farage and Starmer – who rarely agree on many issues – claim that Robinson's use of Facebook Live and flouting a judge's order by spreading prohibited details of a 2018 sexual abuse case in the Huddersfield community almost led to the trial being overturned.
Farage, who is trying to soften the image of his Reform UK organization to attract more Conservative supporters, said courting Robinson could do “huge damage” to his party. But Musk does he tweeted Robinson deserves to be released and that Farage should be released.
Starmer claps again
In one of his sharpest public appearances since becoming prime minister last summer, Starmer took aim at Musk on Tuesday, accusing the world's richest man of spreading lies.
“I am ready to explain what this is about. We have seen this playbook many times, causing intimidation and threats of violence, hoping the media will reinforce it,” Starmer said. “When the poison of the far right leads to serious threats to Jess Phillips and others, then a line has been crossed in my book.”
Many Britons also blamed Musk for inflaming tempers and inciting violence in the wake of the killing of three young people at a dance class in Southport, England, this summer. Musk cited far-right conspiracy theories linking the incident to mass immigration, stating that a “civil war” in Britain was inevitable.
It is difficult to assess how much interest Musk's interventions have among the British public. In the wake of Musk's attacks on social media, YouGov pollster reposted in the latest poll from November, highlighting that Musk was unpopular with 64% of the British public at the time.
On the other hand, Labor may fear that Musk's attacks – whether truthful or not – could nonetheless cause damage.
A Labor cabinet minister responded to Musk's recent accusations: announcing that people who fail to report child sexual abuse could face criminal prosecution under a new law that will be introduced later in 2025 – which is one of the recommendations in Professor's report. Jaya.
For Starmer and other European politicians, attacking Musk carries risks, says Saint Mary's Bale.
“They know that Musk is really close to Trump and by insulting Musk, they may very well turn Trump against them.”