Consider the political landscape from our prime minister’s perspective. The richest man in the world is pursuing a sudden but profound grudge against your premiership, promulgating conspiracist invective from the seat of his social media fiefdom. He has referred to one of your ministers, whose expertise and counsel you value, as a “rape genocide apologist”. Your two principal political opponents, vying for primacy on the right, have accommodated and appeased his worldview. Meanwhile, the UK media is mesmerised at best and parroting hostile talking points at worst.
And yet, as far as Keir Starmer’s tech billionaire torment is concerned, this was not a bad week.
With an online onslaught raging, it was striking the extent to which Starmer’s intervention on Monday — when he accused Elon Musk of crossing a “line” — cut through. The statement was neither a panicked overreaction nor too timid. In chorus, Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage argued the PM had inappropriately evoked the “poison” of extreme politics. Their response reflected Musk’s emergent status as the UK right’s new ringmaster.
Badenoch and Farage’s totemic battle for supremacy reimagined itself as one of servility this week — a fawn-off for Musk’s affection. Andrew Griffith, the shadow business secretary and close ally of Badenoch, was the most overtly toadyish. He declared on X that Musk’s purchase of the platform in 2022 could have “saved humanity”.
In the long term, Badenoch’s tactics will widen the political space that only Farage can dominate. Another week ends with the Conservative Party having made little tangible progress on its defining challenges; as leader, Badenoch continues to skip the soul-searching stage in favour of a rightward march towards Faragism — and possibly beyond. Was Robert Jenrick’s X missive — which castigated “alien cultures”, “medieval attitudes” and “entrenched sectarian voting blocs” — a sign of things to come for UK Conservatism, or an indication his leadership campaign never ended? (Note his X banner).
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Badenoch’s task this week was as follows: to maintain the pretence of reasonability, while engaging with and echoing Musk’s newsy vitriol. The government’s refusal to hold a national inquiry into the grooming gangs, Badenoch told the House at PMQs, served to mask Labour “complicity” and reflected a “cover up”. The Conservative leader hid her most aggressive criticisms behind the rhetorical shield of public “perception”. But Musk got the message.
“Well said by Kemi Badenoch”, the X owner responded, as if his bidding had been accomplished.
The Conservative leader used her weekly moment in the political spotlight — her first of 2025 — to appeal to a social media cabal that, relative to the electorate at at large, is of microscopic significance. In the medium term, Farage might have something to gain, momentum-wise, from galvanising a devoted online fan base. But Badenoch’s activism risks further extracting her party from the mainstream of public opinion: the critical electoral mass that Conservative leaders once ably channelled and directed.
But Badenoch’s remarks reflect a cruel reality for Starmer: his government is under concerted, intensifying siege. The prime minister needs a coherent strategy to navigate the sheer hostility that surrounds his administration — which is echoed across all media platforms, but no more so than on Musk’s X.
The prime minister reminded the public of his government’s strict moral-political lines this week, and undertook to police them forcefully. When it comes to Elon Musk, in what feels like an increasingly rare state of affairs, public opinion is on Starmer’s side. Fewer than one in five British respondents view Musk favourably, according to a recent YouGov poll. That is a source of strength for the PM.
Conversely, the Conservative Party’s approach to the tech billionaire this week — comprising a spectrum from tacit condemnation to overt celebration — is surely a hostage to fortune. Badenoch is playing with forces that could soon consume her party. For all the emphasis on her “thoughtful”, intellectual brand of conservatism, the Tory leader has shown little interest in interrogating the political modes Musk represents.
That, for what it is worth, is the Westminster angle. But unfortunately for Starmer and those sympathetic to his cause, it may be worth little.
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The MAGA angle
The now-shattered Musk-Farage alliance, after all, was a turquoise herring. In the midst of his latest X siege, it is Musk’s enduring proximity to the president-elect, Donald Trump, that should have Starmer quaking.
“We have to protect our geniuses. We don’t have that many of them”, Trump declared in his victory speech on 6 November as he extolled Musk’s rising star.
There is good reason to believe the president-elect will continue to protect his loudest and richest MAGA asset. The tech billionaire donated around $200 million to the Republican’s election effort — making him one of the biggest benefactors ever in a single US presidential campaign cycle. Meanwhile X, which Musk bought in 2022 for $44 billion, was converted into another media appendage of the Republican Party.
Musk’s election heroics warranted handsome reward. And his formal place in the incoming administration as Trump’s efficiency tsar is the least of it. Since he was named DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) co-premier, Musk’s war on Washington waste has been usurped by grander ambition: exporting the MAGA revolution.
Trump — in spite or because of it all — continues to publicly back his chief donor-turned-DOGE chief. Speaking at a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida this week, the president-elect insisted that Musk was “doing a very good job” when drawn on his recent commentary.
Musk is prosecuting a war on multiple fronts. His support for radical right political parties in the UK and Germany has compelled European governments to reconsider their response to online disinformation and laws covering election interference. Musk’s timeline is almost exclusively dedicated to criticising the policy of foreign administrations (with the notable exception, it should be said, of autocratic regimes).
But Musk’s power is not borne of his X eminence. It is his enduring proximity to the president-elect, as a Mar-a-Lago mainstay, that will most concern his select international adversaries. Musk is no mere lone troll — basement-dwelling and detached from power and influence. In less than ten days, he will be advising the world’s most powerful man.
Indeed, Musk — who has called for the imprisonment of Keir Starmer and release of Tommy Robinson — has already joined Trump on calls with world leaders.
These concerns were the backdrop to the BBC Newsnight report this week, which spoke of the horror “at the highest level of the [UK] government” at Musk’s X antics. “There is going to be… a hard-headed assessment: is this just the view of Elon Musk, or is it the view of the wider administration and the incoming president Donald Trump?”, political editor Nicholas Watt explained.
“If it’s the latter then there may well need to be some very, very serious questions about the nature of our ongoing security partnership with the United States. …
“We are members of the Five Eyes group with the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand…. Can you have that level of sharing everything if this sort of stuff is endorsed by the next president of the United States?”
The report sparked a bitter response on X, naturally. But the UK government has no choice but to treat Musk’s ramblings with the utmost seriousness.
In the short term, this is a challenge for Lord Mandelson, the new UK ambassador to the United States. The Blairite grandee has already reflected publicly on Musk’s antagonism. Interviewed by The News Agents’ podcast in November, Mandelson urged the government to “reconnect” with the tech tycoon and suggested he “was probably wound up and primed by Labour’s political opponents”. In recent months, of course, Musk’s view of Starmer has deteriorated markedly.
Mandelson’s MAGA reconnaissance mission — as he estimates the disruptive potential of the new Trump administration — will be the crucial activity this government undertakes in the coming weeks. That mission mostly pertains to the role of Musk, his avenues of influence and how they could be redirected.
Still, the basic questions Our Man In Washington must answer are anything but. Is, for instance, the tech billionaire freelancing — or do his ostensibly nonsensical ramblings reveal something deeper about the MAGA foreign policy agenda?
Is his conspiracist conjecture a feature or bug of Trump’s diplomatic approach?
Is Musk simply at the vanguard of the MAGA revolution, providing early clarity about the president-elect’s radicalised worldview?
Are other members of the Trump administration well-positioned and bold enough to steer Trump away from Musk? How likely is a high-profile uncoupling between the president and his “first buddy”?
And then the more subjective questions that follow: if Trump refuses to rein Musk in, should inaction be read as a tacit endorsement of his remarks? Does the very fact that Musk’s comments are acceptable MAGA discourse preclude the resumption of normal US-UK diplomatic relations and, yes, security procedure?
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Trump, it should be said, does not see rows with his international counterparts as an inherent diplomatic taboo. The mutually hostile relationship between the US president-elect and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau was a recurrent feature of the former’s first term. Trump’s presidential transition has seen tempers reignite — even after Trudeau’s resignation address.
Should Starmer fear the liberal-statesman-shaped gap in the market, designed for an international MAGA adversary — onto whom Trump acolytes can project some dystopian ideal? Notably, within the MAGAverse, it wasn’t just Musk who levelled fierce criticism at Starmer this week. Turning Point USA founder and close Trump confidant Charlie Kirk labelled the prime minister a “grooming gang enabler” and said it was “tragic” that MPs did not pass the Tory reasoned amendment on a national inquiry.
It is no secret, therefore, that some quarters of MAGA are serious about destabilising Starmer — and such outbursts will be a prominent feature of our politics for the foreseeable future.
The mystery lies with the president-elect himself. Trump’s recent commentary on his territorial aspirations and tariff plans suggests the incoming administration will continue to shun diplomatic norms — to a significantly greater extent than his 2017-2021 term. After all, Trump tops the growing list of events and external factors over which the prime minister has no direct control. Musk may well feature second. And if their duumvirate endures, and shapes US state policy on trade and overseas territories (Greenland, the Chagos Islands), Starmer’s bind will tighten.
Donald Trump will leave office on 20 January 2029. Starmer could, if he avoids a snap poll, outlast him. But the long road to that juncture looks fraught indeed.
Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky here.
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