Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
Elon Musk has privately discussed with allies how Sir Keir Starmer could be removed as UK prime minister before the next general election, according to people briefed on the matter.
Musk, the world’s richest man and key confidant of US president-elect Donald Trump, is probing how he and his right-wing allies can destabilise the UK Labour government beyond the aggressive posts he has issued on his social media platform X, the people said.
“His view is that western civilisation itself is threatened,” one of the people added.
Musk has sought information about whether it might be possible to build support for alternative British political movements — notably the rightwing populist Reform UK party — to force a change of prime minister before the next election, according to associates.
In the UK parliamentary system, prime ministers wield power because they lead the party with the most MPs.
Several prime ministers in recent decades, including Sir Tony Blair and Boris Johnson, have won big majorities at elections, only to exit mid-parliament because of their waning popularity.
The chief executive of Tesla, SpaceX and X, who has been appointed by Trump to co-lead a project to rein in US government spending, has taken a keen interest in British politics over the past six months, and made increasingly strident criticism of Starmer’s government.
Over the past week he has demanded a new national inquiry into historic grooming cases involving sexual exploitation of girls by gangs of mainly British-Pakistani men in several UK towns and cities.
Musk has accused Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions in England and Wales who tackled child sexual abuse, of being “complicit” in the rape of Britain.
He has described Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, as a “rape genocide apologist” after she rejected a request by Oldham council for the Home Office to hold a Whitehall-led inquiry into the grooming scandal in the Greater Manchester town.
Starmer has strongly rejected Musk’s criticisms of his time as a prosecutor. He said on Monday that those “spreading lies and misinformation” were not interested in victims but rather “themselves”. Phillips accused Musk of endangering her life.
Matt Goodwin, a rightwing political commentator, said Musk — and other Americans — had become “fascinated” by the grooming gangs scandal in the UK over the past week in part because “it’s so horrific”.
But he said he also believed it was because Musk has “an instinctive distrust of the Labour government and Keir Starmer”.
Musk has been approached for comment.
In a shock move over the weekend, Musk distanced himself from Nigel Farage, dashing the Reform UK leader’s hopes that the billionaire would make a large donation to his party in the near future.
Musk said “the Reform party needs a new leader” and that “Farage doesn’t have what it takes”.
Musk has been examining possible candidates to replace Farage as leader of the party, including Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe, and has probed what mechanisms there are to replace him, according to people briefed on his thinking.
Reform UK has been enjoying a surge in support in recent months, with opinion polls suggesting 22 per cent of the public back the party, up from 14 per cent at the time of the July election.
Labour, meanwhile, is on 28 per cent, with the Tories on 24 per cent, according to Politico’s poll of polls.
Musk’s rift with Farage comes after the two met at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida last month, and the Reform UK leader described the serial entrepreneur as a “friend”.
Farage on Tuesday downplayed the spat. He told LBC radio that he would be seeing Musk this month, and planned to travel to the US to attend Trump’s inauguration in Washington.
“I have no desire to go to war with Elon Musk and I’m not going to,” he added.
Starmer, by contrast, is not expected to attend Trump’s inauguration. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is also not planning to attend.
Additional reporting by Lucy Fisher
