Monday, January 06, 2025
Musk says Farage is not the messiah after all
The paper reports that Musk has said Nigel Farage “doesn’t have what it takes” to be Reform UK’s leader, despite Farage refusing to condemn the billionaire businessman for his inflammatory comments about Keir Starmer and Jess Phillips just hours earlier:
In a surprise intervention, less than three weeks after Musk met Farage at Donald Trump’s Florida home amid reports he could donate $100m (£80m) to Reform, Musk used X, the social media platform he owns, to say: “The Reform party needs a new leader. Farage doesn’t have what it takes.”
It was not clear what prompted Musk, who has tweeted numerous times recently about UK politics, to change his mind about the Reform leader.
But Farage indicated it could have been due to disagreement about Tommy Robinson, the jailed far-right anti-Islam agitator whom Musk has characterised as a political prisoner, but whom Farage condemns.
“Well, this is a surprise!” Farage wrote on X after Musk’s tweet. “Elon is a remarkable individual but on this I am afraid I disagree. My view remains that Tommy Robinson is not right for Reform and I never sell out my principles.”
Speaking earlier, Farage said Musk, who has called Phillips a “rape genocide apologist” and said Starmer was “complicit in the rape of Britain”, had brought back free speech on social media since buying Twitter, which he renamed X.
“I don’t agree with everything he stands for,” Farage told BBC One’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg. “But I do believe in free speech. I think he’s a hero.”
He added: “Free speech is back. Well, you may find it offensive, but it’s a good thing, not a bad thing.”
Speaking later to the BBC, Wes Streeting, the health secretary, condemned Musk’s comments about Phillips, among a mass of messages on the subject of grooming gangs Musk has sent to his 210 million X followers in recent days.
“It is a disgraceful smear of a great woman who has spent her life supporting victims of the kind of violence that Elon Musk and others say that they’re against,” he said.
Streeting condemned what he called “armchair critics on social media”, contrasting them with people such as Starmer and Phillips, who “have done the hard yards of actually locking up wife beaters, rapists, paedophiles”.
Whether Musk will now give the promised $100m donation to Reform has to be seen, but Farage should reflect that if he is going to sup with the devil, to coin a phrase, then it may not always be to his benefit.
