Musk busts through the UK political china shop

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and X (formerly known as Twitter) may detest the current Kier Starmer government due to clashes on topics like free speech and immigration, but Musk is playing the long game. He’s getting cosy with major figures from both sides of the aisle, advancing his particular beliefs on AI and the next generation of communications… and if those connections help his business interests, too, well, why not?

We’ve known previously that former Prime Ministers Tony Blair, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have had dealings with Musk. This article in the Financial Times weaves those threads together with how the mogul is also making a mark with people who made their names as SpAds from both major political parties. The operative theme seems to be: figure out how to work with Musk, or reject at your peril.

And here’s another extra twist: The Times is reporting that Musk is also preparing to donate $100 million to Nigel Farage and the Reform party to help him become the next Prime Minster. Regardless of whether that comes to pass, he’s already taking a very outsized role for a technology entrepreneur, indeed.