Why Nigel Farage should be scared of Elon Musk

The X owner’s obsession with British politics could soon turn out to be a mixed blessing for the Reform leader.

Rocket man Elon Musk helped to send president-elect Donald Trump to the political stratosphere, but it seems inevitable that eventually their relationship will suffer an almighty crash landing.

Two colossal egos can rarely co-exist, and it will be an anomaly of epic proportions if this rule fails to manifest in the case of Elon and Donald – two fragile men with short tempers and lots of enemies who used to be allies.

But Trump isn’t the only politician who could soon fall out with the square-jawed South African.

Credit: Daniel Oberhaus / Flickr

Nigel Farage is also surfing the far-right wave powered by Elon, whose social media platform X purposefully acts as a breeding ground for the barely-disguised xenophobia that has been peddled by Farage for decades.

Scan X for more than five minutes and you will inevitably bump into one of Farage’s MPs or acolytes whinging about Muslims or migrants – without the self-awareness to recognise, of course, that immigration (especially from non-white countries) has surged as a result of Brexit.

In a new interview with Winston Marshall (son of Paul Marshall, who employs Farage on GB News), the Reform leader was particularly glowing about Musk.

“He’s clearly got one of the quickest brains that’s ever been built,” Farage said, “you know I mean it just is amazing.”

The pair apparently met recently (in what sounds like a meeting of Satan’s Privy Council), and Farage said that Musk was a “remarkably normal affable personable; amusing, opinionated but passionate”.

However, Farage would be wise not to get too high on Musk’s Kool-Aid.

Despite creating a social media platform that could have been borne from a Nigel Farage fever dream, Musk has a bunch of pals with opinions that make Farage look like a cappuccino-sipping woke hippie.

For example, the X owner has repeatedly used his platform to champion the far-right supervillain Tommy Robinson. In recent days, Musk has instructed his 200 million followers to watch a documentary by Robinson, and has questioned why the EDL co-founder is currently sitting in a British jail.

For context, Robinson is serving a 18 month sentence for contempt of court after repeating false claims (in the same documentary that Musk told his followers to watch) about a Syrian refugee, despite having been warned by a judge not to do so.

Musk may soon realise that Farage (for all his intensely awful views) does not share his particular brand of deranged demagoguery, and could try to promote Robinson as a potential alternative.

Indeed, there are already murmurings of discontent among Reform supporters at Farage’s supposedly wet views. The Reform leader has ruled out supporting the mass deportation of “illegal” immigrants, has said that he doesn’t want to alienate the majority of “moderate, law abiding, taxpaying” Muslims, and has recently appointed a Muslim chairman of his party.

By contrast, a panellist received rapturous applause at Reform’s conference a couple of months ago, when he suggested that mass deportations should be the party’s flagship policy.

Farage has cast all sorts of aspersions on Muslims over the years. In his first interview of the recent general election campaign, he suggested that Muslims don’t share British values. But even Farage (either for ideological reasons, or due to political expediency) baulks at some of the hatred espoused by Tommy Robinson; the same hatred that is now being promoted by their mutual mate Musk.

The latter could lead an insurgency against the Reform leader, if he believes that Farage isn’t quite vile enough for his liking. He has both the money and the means to carry out this coup.

Farage has decided to cosy up to the playground bully. But the smirk will soon fade if Musk turns around and punches him in the face.

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