Elon Musk turns on UK’s Nigel Farage, says he should quit as Reform party leader

LONDON – Mr Elon Musk said Mr Nigel Farage should quit as leader of Britain’s right-wing Reform UK party in an abrupt withdrawal of support by the US billionaire for the Brexit campaigner who is trying to shake up the British political establishment again.

“The Reform party needs a new leader. Farage doesn’t have what it takes,” Mr Musk said on his social media platform X on Jan 5, a few hours after Mr Farage described him as a friend who made Reform look “cool”.

Mr Musk – a close ally of US President-elect Donald Trump – had seemingly backed Mr Farage and posed for a photograph with him in December 2024.

Reform won 4.1 million votes, or 14 per cent of the total, and five seats in Parliament in

July 2024’s national election.

Mr Farage has previously said he is in negotiations with Mr Musk about the billionaire donating to Reform to help it challenge the dominant Labour and Conservative parties.

But Mr Farage has distanced himself from comments made by Mr Musk in support of British anti-immigration and anti-Muslim activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known by the pseudonym Tommy Robinson, who is

serving a prison sentence for contempt of court.

Mr Farage responded to Mr Musk’s post on Jan 5 saying: “Well, this is a surprise! Elon is a remarkable individual but on this I am afraid I disagree. My view remains that Tommy Robinson is not right for Reform and I never sell out my principles.”

In December 2024, Mr Musk

endorsed the Alternative for Germany,

an anti-immigration, anti-Islamic party labelled as right-wing extremist by German security services, ahead of national elections in February.

He has previously sought to influence British politics and

has criticised Prime Minister Keir Starmer

repeatedly since anti-immigration riots in the summer of 2024.

The Tesla founder last week backed calls for a national inquiry into the handling of cases of rape by men of Pakistani heritage of underage girls by the government’s prosecution service which Mr Starmer previously ran.

A 2014 inquiry found at least 1,400 children were subjected to sexual exploitation in Rotherham, northern England, between 1997 and 2013.

The Times said Mr Starmer was expected to address the criticism at a news conference on Jan 6 by saying he gave the green light to prosecuting paedophile gangs in 2013 and reformed the way that child abuse cases are handled by prosecutors.

But he was unlikely to criticise Mr Musk directly, given the billionaire’s proximity to Trump, the newspaper said.

A spokesperson in Mr Starmer’s office declined to comment.

On Jan 5,

UK Health Minister Wes Streeting defended Mr Starmer

and another member of his Cabinet, MP Jess Phillips, who incurred Mr Musk’s ire for reportedly saying that any fresh inquiry into another gang-rape case should be handled by the local authority.

“It’s all very easy to sit there and fire off something in haste and click ‘send’ when people like Keir Starmer and Jess Phillips have done the hard yards of actually locking up wife-beaters, rapists and paedophiles,” Mr Streeting told the BBC. REUTERS