Lord Mandelson has said the government “should make it our business to connect” with Elon Musk, despite the controversial tech tycoon’s very public disdain for the prime minister.
Mandelson, the former New Labour cabinet minister and trusted adviser to Tony Blair, insisted Labour should “redouble our efforts” to connect with Musk because he is too influential to ignore.
Mandelson is tipped as the frontrunner to become the UK ambassador to the US, with a decision expected within days.
He told The News Agents podcast that Musk “was probably wound up and primed by Labour’s political opponents [Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party] to influence the [UK general] election campaign”, following his criticisms of Labour over the summer.
Musk, the richest man in the world, repeatedly accused the prime minister of overseeing “two-tier” policing as violence spread across the UK in the wake of a stabbing attack in Southport in which three children were killed.
Musk attacked Starmer on X (formerly Twitter), the social media platform he owns, and even predicted a “civil war” in the UK.
In September, Musk commented on reports he was not invited to an upcoming investment summit over his incendiary social media posts. “I don’t think anyone should go to the UK when they’re releasing convicted pedophiles [sic] in order to imprison people for social media posts”, he wrote on X.
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Earlier this week, US president-elect Donald Trump announced the appointment of Musk to a new Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).
Trump said in a statement: “Together, these two wonderful Americans [Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy] will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies — essential to the ‘Save America’ movement.”
During the US presidential election, Musk donated $120 million to Trump’s campaign, held rallies for him in the swing state of Pennsylvania and promoted his campaign’s messages relentlessly on X.
Asked if it is a problem that Musk has the ear of Trump given his criticisms of the Labour Party, Mandelson told The News Agents podcast: “I don’t quite understand where Elon Musk got this thing from about the Labour government. I actually don’t know what the origin of it was. I don’t know what the misunderstanding was, or who said what to whom.”
“I suspect he was probably wound up and primed by Labour’s political opponents to influence the election campaign.”
Pressed on whether Musk’s hostility to Labour was engineered by the Conservative Party, Mandelson said: “It is quite possible, because, as we know, he had a relationship with the Conservatives which is why Rishi Sunak invited him to Bletchley into the AI Summit. I’m saying if it is the case, and it is possible that it was, then I think we’ve got a lot of work to do in this country as a Labour government in overcoming that misunderstanding and that prejudice and getting into some sort of communication with Elon Musk.
“He’s clearly a very important and influential entrepreneur in a whole number of different areas, and I think we should make it our business to connect with him.”
He went on: “What I’m saying is that if it were the case that Mr Musk was influenced against Labour by our political opponents, then that we need to redouble our efforts to connect with him so that he sees us for what we are, which is a good, strong, responsible government trying to bring about economic and industrial change in this country of which we want him to be part of.”
Mandelson added: “I certainly think we need to connect because he’s frankly got too big a footprint in too many industrial areas for us simply to ignore him so you can have whatever views you want about his view of the world and whatever.
“And we can all have our private opinions about what he says on particular topics, but you can’t just sort of shun and ignore somebody who has that sort of role and that sort of place, in areas, whether it be to do with Tesla cars, rockets, exploration in space, and, of course, his entire satellite system, as we’ve seen, the role of that in Ukraine and other places. So, he can’t be ignored.
“We can’t be indifferent to what he’s saying and doing. So, if we can reconnect, we should.”
You can listen to the full interview on The News Agents podcast on Global Player this evening.
Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on X/Twitter here.
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