Elon Musk has stepped up his attacks on the UK since the election of Sir Keir Starmer’s Labor government, calling the country a “police state”.
But he enjoys a warmer relationship with former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Tony Blair, both of whom have tried to strengthen ties with the world’s richest man, now one of US President-elect Donald Trump’s closest advisers.
Johnson recently reacquainted himself with the Tesla boss, according to three people familiar with the matter, after being reacquainted with Sriram Krishnan, the London-based venture capitalist who helped Musk with his 2022 acquisition of Twitter.
Blair, who in a recent book hailed the entrepreneur as an “innovator extraordinaire,” met with Musk and spoke to him by phone, according to people familiar with their contacts.
They share a common investor in Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who has backed both Tesla and Tony Blair’s Institute for Global Change. TBI is also working with Musk’s Starlink satellite network on projects in Malawi and Rwanda.
Musk’s worsening attitude towards the UK dates back to the mass stabbing of children in Southport in July when riots broke out across the country.
Dozens of people have been arrested for posting on social media, and some of them have been jailed for crimes including inciting racial hatred.
In response, Musk adopted the phrase “two-tiered Keir,” contrasting the punishment of social media posters with punishments for other offenders.
When Starmer’s X bill said in August, “We will not tolerate attacks on mosques or on Muslim communities,” Musk responded, “Shouldn’t you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?”
Tensions were further inflamed when Musk was not invited to the Global Investment Summit in the UK in October. Musk responded by posting on X: “I don’t think anyone should go to the UK when they release convicted pedophiles to jail people for posting on social media.”
At the time, the Starmer government began releasing certain prisoners early due to overcrowding, although sex offenders were excluded.
Musk’s stance on British politics follows interventions around the world, ranging from championing Argentina’s populist leader Javier Miley to criticizing liberal leadership in countries such as Germany, Brazil and Australia.
But his scathing criticism of the UK has become particularly frequent and outspoken, and has spread far beyond technology and free speech. He slammed Starmer’s move to levy inheritance tax on some farms as “complete Stalin”.
Starmer’s government, which has few ties to Musk, was caught off guard. Lord Peter Mandelson, a Labor peer, last week told UK leaders to “swallow their pride” and deal with with associates of leader Tesla and X.
Mandelson’s advice included using Musk’s British “friends” to build relationships, while he described UK Reform leader Nigel Farage as a “bridgehead” for both Trump and Musk.
Farage told the FT that Trump had introduced him to Musk ahead of the US election and that the businessman had “incredible knowledge” of the UK, “even farmers and inheritance tax”.
He told a YouTube podcast, The Winston Marshall Showthat Musk explained his interest in the United Kingdom by saying: “You’re the mother country of the entire English-speaking world, that’s really important.”
A year ago, then-prime minister Rishi Sunak praised Musk as a “brilliant innovator” as they shared the stage at London’s palatial Lancaster House for the closing act of the UK government’s global AI security summit.
Sunak, a self-proclaimed “tech geek,” sent Musk a direct message to invite him, only to be “embarrassed” for several weeks, according to people familiar with the meeting.
Musk he eventually responded, and later pitched the then-prime minister the idea of setting up a hub for AI talent in Britain, according to two people familiar with the discussions. People close to Sunak say the pair stayed in touch afterwards, with Musk later describing him on X as “good for the UK”.
He has also previously had warm words for the UK’s second prime minister, citing family ties that may help explain his continued interest in the UK: “I have always admired Margaret Thatcher,” he wrote in 2013, “she was firm but sensible and fair, like my English nana.”
During Johnson’s tenure as prime minister, Musk struck up a relationship with the prime minister’s then-independent adviser Dominic Cummings, according to people familiar with the matter. One Cummings ally said the two bonded over shared views on “people, ideas and machines” rather than politics.
Some of the ideas behind Musk’s Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE) — an advisory body appointed by President-elect Trump to co-chair — echo those put forward by Cummings in 2020.
While Cummings advertised for people with “exceptional academic credentials,” “weirds and misfits,” and people willing to do “exhausting but interesting” work, Musk now wants to hire “small government revolutionaries with super high IQs willing to work 80+ hours a week on unglamorous cost cutting”.
Cummings posted on Xu mentioning Musk seven times in the past month, with several posts referring to how the liberal class underestimates his genius, and joining his criticism of British politics and the crusade for free speech.
Silicon Valley allies and fellow Trump supporters have taken up the same cause, such as venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who this week responded to a post alleging that UK police had detained 3,300 Britons for “online trolling” – drawn from 2017. Article in the Times — with the inscription: “They will welcome us as liberators”.
Shaun Maguire, a partner at venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, reposted the video made by the far-right provocateur Tommy Robinsonsaying, “Anyone who doubts the institutional decay and socialist moral rot that has taken over Western societies needs to watch this.”
“Why is he in prison for 18 months?” Musk wrote last weekend while retweeting a post from Robinson’s account about his latest prison sentence. In October, Robinson was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to contempt of court by repeatedly making false allegations against the Syrian refugee.
The billionaire told an associate he feared arrest if he traveled to the UK, according to a person with direct knowledge of the conversation.
One person who worked closely with Musk said he responded to “literally everything the Twittersphere throws at him at the time”, adding that “there are a lot of Brits on X and they speak the same language as him”.
“Musk has been radicalized by his own platform,” said the British tech lobbyist, referring to the algorithms on Xu that fed him content about British politics. “I wouldn’t underestimate the extent to which trolling is peacocking for right-wing bros in the ‘manosphere’ he now finds himself in.”
Others argue that Musk’s antipathy can be traced to his business interests. A landmark of the United Kingdom Online Security Act, which will take effect next year, will require X and other social media groups to remove content deemed to incite violence or racial hatred.
“His British free speech crusade is 100 percent about retaliating against a perceived regulatory threat to X,” said a person who worked closely with Musk. X is currently hiring for regulatory legal counsel in London or Dublin.
Some UK policymakers have expressed concern over whether Musk will complicate Labor’s bid to build ties with the new US president, as well as efforts to strengthen tech regulation. “He’s too important to be ignored,” said Musk’s senior Labor official. “We’re going to have to work with him, at least until everything blows up between him and Trump.”
Farage sees things more positively. Asked if Reform UK could expect help in the next UK election campaign, he said: “Will Trump and Elon support me in the run-up to 2029? Well, that’s what friends are for, right?”
Additional reporting by Eleanor Olcott in Beijing
