Elon Musk has been making headlines for the past few weeks, between his beef with Nigel Farage, telling US Congress members how to vote, and calling for the UK to be “liberated” from their “tyrannical government” in a Twitter poll. As the inauguration of Donald Trump approaches Musk will soon be a senior member of the US government. But not the UK Government. Here’s why he should wind his neck in.
In the past few weeks, Musk seems to have become obsessed over the grooming gangs scandal in the UK, and to be fair to him, it’s absolutely horrendous, it’s horrifying that this issue hasn’t been dealt with by any UK government in the past 28 years. Of both parties. But so far, Musk has just criticised Labour, calling for Jess Philip’s, who he called a “rape genocide apologist”, Kier Starmer, and Gordon Brown to be jailed, claiming that Brown “sold little girls for votes”.
Featured image credit: Elon Musk
This is a horrendous allegation, to the point Starmer was asked on the 6th of January 2025 if he was considering legal action against Musk, but he claimed that British people care more about the NHS, which he was actually at a press conference to answer questions on at the time, rather than what’s being tweeted. I’m no Starmer fan, but I do agree with him there. Am I absolutely horrified by the fact that this grooming has been happening for over a quarter of a century, and no government has actually addressed it? Of course. But X is a cesspool and its owner, who was elected by absolutely no one, doesn’t have the political legitimacy to butt in and call for elected officials to go to jail.
Not only that, are we really convinced that Musk actually cares about this issue? Like I said, this issue has existed since 1997 and thirteen of those years were spent under Labour governments, and they absolutely deserve criticism for how this was handled. But fourteen of those years were spent under Conservative governments, and do you see Musk calling out Tories? Did you before? No because people who actually care about the safety of women and girls don’t see it as a partisan issue. Those who don’t care, turn it into a blue versus red war.
Featured image credit: Elon Musk
Hence, tonight he retweeted a tweet showing a list of MPs who: “voted against deporting foreign rapists”. The list in question, contains many names, but many of them are not of MPs, some are members of the House of Lords. It is non-alphabetical, and is from the Office of Nadia Whitthome. Whitthome is a Labour backbencher. Since MPs only got back to work today, they did not cover an issue regarding immigration, neither did they cover this before they left for Christmas. This list is fake. It is a lie. Whether or not Musk knows that isn’t information that any of us can know for sure, but it doesn’t make what he’s tweeted on this issue untrue. Not only is he insincere, he’s dishonest.
In the US, he is also hoping to flex his wallet in the hopes of political relevance, although considering that he has actually been assigned a government advisory role, this is more likely to be achieved. As the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE), a position and department that did not exist until now, he aims to reduce “wasteful” government spending.
Apart from this, he ironically appears to be upset about the influence of other wealthy people, namely, MacKenzie Scott, the former wife of Jeff Bezos. With her wealth, Scott has helped organisations such as CAMFED, which supports girls’ education in Africa, and Udue Medical Debt, which allows donors to relieve medical debt for American citizens. But the criticism from Musk comes in the form of a quote tweet, calling her behaviour “concerning”, as John LeFerve accused her of “sewing racial division and supporting illegal immigration” through her donations to groups that state some of their missions as “Empowering Latinx immigrants,” “Deportation Defense,” and “Justice and equality for LGBTQ immigrants.”
This is certainly some high and mighty talk from someone who tweeted that representatives who vote for a bill he doesn’t like should lose their seats. When the US Congress faced a budgeting issue with The American Relief Act 2025, which Musk and Donald Trump both had objections to, Musk tweeted: Musk tweeted: “Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!” Notably, Musk claimed that the bill would have provided $3 billion in funding for a Washington Commander’s stadium, and that the bill would’ve given Congress members a 40% pay rise. Neither of these claims are true. After much debate and changes, objections led to the bill being significantly shortened, down from 1,547 pages, to just 118. The bill was passed with 366 yea votes, only 34 nays, all being Republican representatives.
But away from swaying bills in Congress, Musk is still viewing sex abuse as a partisan issue in The States too. He has recently been tweeting about Passage 7909: The Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act, and the fact that 158 Democrats voted against it. The bill will make it easier for non-US nationals to be deported, by expanding what crimes warrant them to be removed from the country. The bill would make sex crimes, and conspiracy to commit them, enough to have non-US nationals deported. This is a partisan issue in Musk’s eyes. Because if Musk cared about women’s safety, he wouldn’t have defended Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz when he was accused of sexual misconduct, which included a witness coming forward and claiming that she had witnessed Gaetz have sex with a minor. Musk said that the allegations against Gaetz are “worth less than nothing,” to him.
Overall, Musk seems to be very interested in getting rapists some decent prison time, for a man who will soon be working for a president who was found to have sexually assaulted a woman in a changing room in a civil court. All I would say to conclude is that in order for us to keep him as socially and politically irrelevant as he truly is, we need to let him tire himself out. Like a chihuahua that won’t stop barking, we need to let him tire himself out until he learns to leave us alone, knowing his yaps are just illogical and meaningless sounds, which he’s trying to get a reaction from. But we should know that if he ever believes he’s genuinely in control, he could have a mean bite.
Featured Image Credit: Elon Musk
4th year Politics and Journalism student.
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