How Britain Can Stand Up to Elon Musk

The world’s richest man, largely alienated from his family, instead spent the holidays firing off thousands upon thousands of “X” posts. He endorsed Germany’s far-right AfD party and spread (debunked) conspiracies about a violent incident at a Christmas market in Magdeburg. He expounded strange theories about global demographic shifts that demographers call “misleading”. And he spent a staggering amount of time focused on attacking the British government.

Having learned everything he needed to know about British politics from a handful of far-right social media influencers, Musk kicked off this year by proudly backing the British far-right. “Free Tommy Robinson”, he tweeted to his 200 million followers, referencing the fact that the far-right hooligan and influencer (in reality named Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) was serving an 18-month prison sentence for contempt of court.

Since then, he’s only dialled up the pressure, reviving the UK’s polarising (and often, ill-informed) debates on “grooming gangs”, a long-time focal point of far-right groups. He’s accused Keir Starmer and Jess Phillips MP of complicity in the scandal. He’s exacerbated calls for a “national inquiry,” despite the fact that we’ve already had one. It’s what he does best – making a massive fuss over something he’s ill-informed on, igniting the small percentage of extremists in this country looking for an excuse to get activated. We saw it back during the race riots in August, too.

This time though, Musk is going even further. On January 6th, he asked whether the US should “liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government”. At a time when Donald Trump is speaking seriously about annexing Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal, either via military force or economic pressure, the threat feels more serious than silly. It’s been reported that “Musk is probing how he and his right-wing allies can destabilise the UK Labour government”

With the mere press of a button, a foreign billionaire can dictate the nation’s entire news cycle. The entire press this year so far has been inundated with stories, both supportive and critical, of Musk’s intervention. The right-wing press, including The Sun, have gone as far as to fantasise about various coup and invasion scenarios, including a “buyout” in which the US flat out purchases the United Kingdom and gains the right to simply wave our democratic rights and replace our recently-elected government. Maddening stuff.

While Musk seems to have gone sour on Nigel Farage, he seems intent on doing all he can to stir division and put pressure on Starmer’s government. What doesn’t help is a right-wing press – not to mention a Conservative and Reform party in Parliament – that is seeking to legitimise the billionaire’s interventions.

In waiting so long to take action to fix our democracy, Keir Starmer has made his own job harder. If he were to now begin repairing our campaign finance system, implementing proportional representation, and strengthening regulations for social media platforms, Musk would likely seek to to weaponise it and turn it into a conspiracy. But it doesn’t matter. The second best time is right now.

Starmer can stand up to Elon Musk – right now – by:

• Finally addressing the crucial issue of media reform, beginning with Leveson part 2 as soon as possible. The press can’t be allowed to parrot lies from a foreign billionaire, and present them as fact. Letting Musk dictate the media cycle has let him dictate the political cycle.

  
  

• Strengthening the Online Safety Act. In Europe and Brazil, where they’ve got much stronger laws around how social media platforms must operate, they’ve had better luck holding Musk and other social media barons accountable. Even our latest social media law, the Online Safety Act, does practically nothing to reign in the pervasive conspiracies spreading on X.

  
  

• Regulating political donations, especially foreign ones. It’s uncertain whether Musk’s proposed $100 million donation to Reform UK will go through, but Starmer must take action to ensure that no foreign billionaire can funnel money into our political system.

  
  

• Create a National Commission for Electoral Reform. If our elections were fairer, the significant majority of this country that doesn’t like Elon Musk could form a viable coalition against him. Unfortunately, we’re currently in a position where a significant majority also dislike the current administration. PR promises to solve that issue – and no, it won’t be a boon to the far-right. Read Mark’s explanation on that here.

  
  

• Use what Americans call the Bully Pulpit. Starmer could not only do more to bully Musk away from Britain, but could at the least threaten to cancel Musk’s various contracts and collaborations with the British government. Teddy Roosevelt (from whom the term “bully pulpit” originates) is famous in the States for bullying the oligarchs of his time when they became a threat to basic democratic values.

It’s important that Starmer take action, and quick, because this problem is deeper than Elon Musk. As we’ve seen with Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos caving to Donald Trump, there is an entire class of mega-billionaires (some of the wealthiest people to ever walk this Earth, and their net worths increase every day) that see themselves as leagues above our Parliaments and procedures.

When Trump takes office later this month, the threat from his right-hand man Elon Musk will not go away. But unlike other countries, Britain has a unique opportunity to defend itself. Starmer can no longer afford to be tepid. It’s time for action.