Elon Musk’s strange attachment to Britain

In 2012, Elon Musk completed a business trip to London and Oxford. “Just returned…met a lot of interesting people,” he wrote on Twitter. “I really like Britain!”

Fast forward to 2024, Musk’s views on Britain are slightly different.

“Civil war is inevitable”… “Britain is going completely Stalinist”… “The British people are fed up with a tyrannical police state”.

These are some of his recent comments on X, since he changed the name of the site after purchasing it.

He has repeatedly clashed with politicians including Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, has spoken out against the right-wing and far-right online and is in talks to donate to Reform UK. According to party leader Nigel Farage,

So why has Musk’s relationship with America’s closest ally apparently soured and what, if anything, does he hope to accomplish?

We would have loved to ask him ourselves but he did not respond to our requests for an interview.

However his X timeline provides some clues.

The self-proclaimed “chief troll officer” often exaggerates in vague ways, making it unclear whether he is being honest or sarcastic.

When he writes, “Is it Britain or the Soviet Union?” He doesn’t actually mean that Britain is a totalitarian communist state, but he does mean it. Often he reposts content with just one word – “interesting” – or an emoji, rather than going into details.

However, in recent years, Musk watchers have noticed that the kinds of things he promotes to his 200 million followers come from a special place: A world view that is liberal and “anti-woke”Against progressives and centrists.

This change was evident last summer during the riots that followed the horrific murder of three girls in a dance class in the city of Southport in northwest England.

False rumors about the attacker X, including far-right accounts that had been banned since Musk took over the company two years ago.

As protests turned violent and riots broke out, Sir Keir issued a warning: “For big social media companies and those who run them – violent disorder, clearly spread online, is also a crime.

“This is happening on your campus, and the law must be upheld everywhere.”

Musk responded with one word: “Crazy.”

Later, he said “civil war is inevitable” and spread a false message from a far-right party leader claiming Sir Keir was considering building detention camps for rioters on the Falkland Islands. By the time he deleted the post, it had been viewed more than one million times.

Musk also criticized Britain’s “prison overcrowding situation” on Joe Rogan’s podcast – which has received 19 million views on YouTube – saying we should “re-create Orwell’s fiction”, about a dystopian society. Reference to Orwell’s writings.

While free speech isn’t Musk’s only big issue — it appears he also cares a lot about existential questions related to the future of humanity — it’s a topic that deserves attention. Owner of Tesla, SpaceX and X Has returned again and again.

A few weeks ago, in response to a tweet by a right-wing US influencer that made exaggerated claims about a previous government report on radicalisation, he commented: “What’s happening in the UK?”

And he may be planning to do more than just tweet. Recently he was pictured with Farage and Reform UK treasurer Nick Candy, amid reports that he is preparing to donate a large sum of money to the party.

Musk’s interest in UK affairs may be a reflection of how his interest your political beliefs have turned. He previously described himself as a centrist and even donated to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, but now he talks a lot about the “woke mind virus.”

According to interviews he has given and a recent biography, the transition of one of his children from male to female – and that child, Vivian Wilson, subsequently cutting him off from her life – appears to be one of the major turning points.

Winston Marshall, the former Mumford & Sons guitarist turned podcast host and right-wing political commentator whose father jointly owns the TV channel GB News, speculated that Musk might pick fights because “he feels very deeply about the UK care”.

“Britain is the birthplace of liberal democracy and many of the great philosophies that underpin America,” says Marshall.

“Then he looks at the UK and he sees what has been going on for many years, but which has now peaked after the August riots, with many people in some cases literally given long prison sentences for Facebook memes Is going.”

“Facebook memes” seem pretty harmless but these examples include – for example – a three-month jail sentence for a person who posted a Facebook group with the caption “Let’s (expletive) riot” Had posted a meme along with it. Name during the Southport Disorder.

Some question whether the tycoon is really as committed to freedom of expression as he claims.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate, which investigates social media companies, had criticized Musk’s tenure at X — prompting the tycoon to file a lawsuit, accusing the organization of misusing data and intimidating advertisers. The case was dismissed by a US judge.

Its CEO Imran Ahmed described the incident as “indicative of the mindset of a person who cannot understand that freedom of speech is a freedom given to all, and not just to him”.

Other critics have pointed out that Musk has been careful not to criticize the president of China, a country where Tesla has large business interests, despite Beijing’s culture of censorship is well documented,

They have little at stake in the UK in terms of business, but the country could still impact their profits Online Security Act, passed by Parliament in late 2023This would allow regulator Ofcom to issue hefty fines to social media companies if certain types of illegal content are found on their platforms.

Andrew Chadwick, professor of political communication at Loughborough University, explains that although some of the provisions in the bill are unquestionable, “where it becomes a little more difficult is where it blurs the lines of illegal content that we might call disinformation or the types of misinformation that we can say.” Watch the broadcasts on social media platforms on daily basis”.

This, he says, could include “racially or religiously serious public order offenses or inciting violence”.

The Act comes with some potentially hefty penalties – a fine of up to 10% of eligible worldwide revenue.

Could it be that Musk is worried that the UK will take a cut of X’s revenue – or else, as the Act allows access to the site in the UK to be blocked in certain circumstances?

Defenders of the Act argue that it has nothing to do with censoring free speech. Former Reform UK press chief Gwen Towler says that while Musk “doesn’t have forensic knowledge of all the details of the backbench committee” he “sees the bigger picture” – what Reform activists and others see as a growing culture of censorship. Let’s describe.

He added, “You don’t always have to focus on the trees. And I think Musk sees the forest quite well.”

No one can read the mind of the richest man in the world.

But it’s clear that Musk has put his vast wealth to use and is now exporting his values ​​– including a mainstream American vision of free speech and largely unbridled capitalism – around the world.

And one thing’s for sure – he’s not done with the UK yet.