In 2022, professor Scott Galloway said in a viral video of a program he was a guest on with Christian Amanpour, “This is someone, who in my opinion, shows a bit of God complex” about Elon Musk. He also stated that while church attendance is decreasing, tech leaders have replaced religion for many people, and Musk has taken on the mantle of “the new Jesus Christ.” Just three weeks after this program, Musk declared “I’m rich, bitch!” after thousands booed him on the Dave Chappelle Show. Many more examples of his conceit could be given. In short, the signs and comments that Musk is extremely arrogant to the point of believing that he can do what he wants because he wants, have been visible since before he meddled too much in politics.
In November 2022, he announced that he would support U.S. President Donald Trump’s Republican opponent Ron DeSantis and in May 2023, he launched DeSantis’ campaign with a failed X broadcast. His inability to do the broadcast well led to Trump and many others mocking him. In those years, Musk said that Trump should finally take his hat and leave, while Trump was insulting Musk by making harsher attacks. In short, Trump won and Musk knelt. But it is clear that this is not a kneel that will never rise again, and it has been embraced.
Pursuing political gain
After writing in August that civil war was inevitable in the U.K. and openly attacking the Labour government, Elon Musk began exploiting the rape gang scandal by tweeting every day in an attempt to overthrow the British government. So much so that on Jan. 8, I found he wrote or retweeted around 40 tweets about Britain. He continued to tweet dozens of times afterward. The reason for this is that he seized the opportunity to attack from a point of truth on a very sensitive issue.
We haven’t seen even a fraction of the effort Musk is making now, not even in the John Smyth scandal that led to the ouster of the Canterbury Archbishop in November, nor in any of the other abuse cases that could be cited. He has dedicated more tweets to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer than to the fire disaster in his country. These are other signs that he is not trying to solve people’s problems but to achieve his own goals.
Not content with Starmer, his surprising attempt to overthrow Reform U.K. leader Nigel Farage for a creature like far-right extremist Tommy Robinson whose faults can’t be crammed in this piece should also be evaluated in this context. Farage can be considered Trump’s strongest supporter outside the U.S. He came to his rallies and made speeches for him. Robinson is nothing compared to Farage in terms of political power and ability. That’s the point. Musk wants someone more in his own control. Therefore, Trump shouldn’t have received his attack on Farage well.
On Jan. 7, veteran New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman claimed, “Trump does complain a bit to people about how Musk is around a lot.” Times Radio also broadcast on Jan. 9, “Trump fearful Musk will steal the limelight.” They were already on bad terms until last year. It is quite possible that the two extremely arrogant men will have other friction and problems in the future. Already, some of Trump’s allies have begun to openly display hostility toward Musk. Steve Bannon called him an “evil person.” He also told an Italian newspaper that, “Stopping him has become a personal issue for me.” Laura Loomer, another ardent supporter of Trump, criticized and mocked him.
The Nigel Farage issue seems to have been covered up for now with both sides softening. Despite being heavily attacked, Farage praised Musk and took it easy. Musk also shared three of Farage’s speeches with praise on Jan. 8 alone and supported him. But covering up is different than removing it. Despite his most friendly attitude, Farage needs to wisely evaluate Musk’s brazenly interventionist approach, which aims to overthrow British politicians one by one, including himself, and to get people to support this by opening a poll on X.
Elon Musk, on the other hand, constantly defends himself against the allegations of interference by giving the example of Labour’s efforts to interfere in the U.S. elections and its politicians who tried to prevent Trump from being elected, as a kind of “they started it first” defense. He openly positioned Labour, which has serious disagreements with Trump and himself, as an enemy. He even implied in a tweet on Jan. 11 that the party was a terrorist organization. Thus, it can be said that he aimed to politically eliminate the opposing actor. His famous tweet on July 24, 2020, should definitely be remembered in this context. In response to the accusation that the U.S. government organized a coup against former Bolivian President Evo Morales for Tesla to secure lithium there, Musk tweeted: “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”
Another factor in his focus on the rape gang issue is undoubtedly that the gang consists mostly of Pakistani origin. Thus, Musk is trying to strengthen the perception that Trump’s “Muslim origin criminal immigrant” profile and the policies he is implementing against that are correct, and supporting those policies should grow. In his tweet on Jan. 6, he wrote “Civilization would be lost” if Trump hadn’t won the election. It seems he has positioned various groups, such as those he perceives as leftist in the West and Muslims coming from outside the West, as civilization destroyers. Those he has left out have been serving Israel’s genocide for the last one and a half years. Although he waters down the accusations of being “far-right” and rejects them, this attitude is exactly the attitude of the far-right.
British aren’t buying this
It can be said that the British are generally not very happy with this attitude, contrary to the interaction figures for X. The latest poll, shared by pollster Luke Tryl on a program on Times Radio on Jan. 10, reported that only 17% of the British public had a positive view of him, while even a third of the voters of the Reform Party, with whom he is most closely associated, had a negative view of him. Although the Daily Mail publishes on a relatively close line, it is possible to find a significant number of reactions in its readers’ comments.
One important point to consider is that a guest on Times Radio pointed out: “Imagine if that was a Russian oligarch or a Chinese oligarch. You know, just because it’s an American oligarch … It’s equally appalling.” One might say that trying to normalize this situation by saying that one side is an enemy and the other an ally is like working voluntarily for the colonialists rather than forcibly. Even though some values and interests overlap more with the U.S., it is clear that it is also a foreign power and has had many conflicts of interest and setbacks with the U.K. from the past to the present.
In this case, the fact that the Reform Party, which puts forward nationalism and national pride arguments, is openly acting as the arm of a foreigner who wants to overthrow the government in their own country is a serious minus for them. Moreover, their inability to react to a man who has clearly targeted not only the government of the country but even the leader of their own party, and their attention to harmonious action, is an image of an attempt by a subordinate to appease and satisfy his superior, which is what should hurt their pride. The incident led a German lawmaker to identify Farage as Musk’s “useful idiot” and many Britons praised him for that.
On Jan. 9, Times Radio aired a video titled “Musk is ‘exploiting’ the story and doesn’t care about the truth.” In the broadcast, Andrew Norfolk, who helped uncover the rape gang story, made the following remarks that I think are definitely worth recording on this subject: “The blame as it existed for me was always at a much lower level. It was individual police officers. It was occasionally corrupt, implicit police officers. It was social workers who looked at these girls and had little more than contempt for them. It was professionals who would not have dreamt of allowing their own daughters to be involved with men like this, who saw these kids as sort of willful teenagers making lifestyle choices, as silly girls and who allowed so many lives to be fractured and broken because they did not want to deal with what was in front of them. They try to blame that on a prime minister or a cabinet minister years after the event when successive Conservative and Labour governments have been in power while this was happening just strikes me as baffling.”
His cousin revealed in an exclusive report by the Daily Mail at the end of December that he does not care about his relatives in Liverpool, where he spent time in his youth. However, his father also claimed recently that he wants to buy the Liverpool club. When the two pieces of information are put side by side, it can be said that Musk does not care about the people of Liverpool, that is, the British citizens, even if they are his biological relatives, but is after power and influence, or in a more comprehensive expression, what he desires.
The city’s motto is written on the dome of the Town Hall in Liverpool: “Deus nobis haec otia fecit,” meaning, “God has given us these days of leisure.” It is debatable whether Liverpool residents still describe the days they are in as “leisure” days. However, it can be said that Musk does not intend to give the people of the U.K. this.