This article originally appeared in our Elevenses newsletter.
It is rare that the award for the ‘world’s most divorced dad’ is handed out so soon into the year, but given the deranged ramblings of Elon Musk over the past few days, it seems inevitable that he will bag the gong for 2025.
After appealing to X users to post “more positive” content in the New Year, Musk preceded to describe Britain’s safeguarding minister Jess Phillips as “a witch” and a supporter of “genocidal rape abusers”, saying she belongs in prison. He then turned on Sir Keir Starmer, who has done more to bring child rape gangs to justice than any of the long list of far-right, culture-war-baiting mouthpieces have ever done, saying he was “deeply complicit in the mass rapes in exchange for votes”.
All of his misinformed tweets – which number around 40 since the start of the year – have been posted with impunity because he sits at the top of one of the world’s largest social media networks. They have prompted a reaction from the prime minister, who indirectly urged him to stop “spreading lies” on grooming gangs, and Emmanuel Macron, who pointed out that ten years ago, it would have been unimaginable that a man with such influence would have thrown his weight behind a new international reactionary movement such as the one making ground in Germany.
But the real social media wrath was reserved for the moment Musk, to the surprise of almost everyone, turned against his British political adversary Nigel Farage after the Reform UK man refused to align his party with the convicted criminal, Tommy Robinson. After singing his praises earlier that day, Farage was forced into a dramatic U-turn when the man who had recently been touting a nine-figure donation to his party declared the leader “unfit” for the job. Other right-wing commentators also posted their dismay, with UK Breitbart editor Raheem Kassam calling Musk a “fucking moron” and Julia Hartley-Brewer telling the Tesla man to butt out of UK affairs. Others suggested putting Musk and Robinson on an island with controversial social media influencer Andrew Tate and just letting them Lord of the Flies it out.
But even to the casual observer, it was obvious that Musk had overplayed his hand. As one person noted, he owed his relevance in British political discourse to latching onto Farage, now he has shot himself in the foot. And it would only take one tweet after a hard day at the office to set himself on a similar trajectory with Donald Trump. As Mike Murphy pointed out in The Sunday Times, Musk is likely to find public life unbearably cumbersome when he takes up his new role in DOGE. Dreams of “conquering an entrenched system” are not so easy when your position lacks statutory power and the budgets you plan to radically reverse are set by Congress, not the White House.
“My best guess is Musk will find himself barking his waste-slashing orders into an impressive red telephone that White House staff will have been careful not to plug in”, Murphy said. “Musk and Trump are tomcats trapped in a pillowcase, and it will not end well. There is only room for one bright sun in Trump’s universe and it is not Musk.”
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