LONDON — Elon Musk fired the latest shots in his war with the British government over the weekend, branding the U.K. a “tyrannical police state,” boosting a petition calling for a fresh general election, and sharing a documentary by a jailed far-right activist to his millions of X followers.
The X owner and adviser to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has spent much of the year feuding with Britain’s new center-left Labour government.
In his latest attack, Musk responded to a post about a viral online petition calling for an immediate general election in the U.K., which only went to the polls in July and returned Labour in a landslide.
Musk said: “The people of Britain have had enough of a tyrannical police state.”
It comes a day after the tech entrepreneur — tapped for a government efficiency job under Trump — reposted a graph showing Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s declining approval ratings, and added: “The voice of the people is a great antidote.”
Musk’s fight with the British government took off over the summer, when he leaped on the killing of three schoolgirls in the seaside town of Southport to offer his thoughts on policing in the U.K., spread inaccurate claims about the government’s response, and accuse Starmer of running a “two-tier” justice system that treats white people more harshly.
Downing Street hit back after he claimed “civil war is inevitable” in the U.K. and he was not invited to a major investment summit held in the fall, although ministers have since tried to rebuild bridges.
Musk’s thoughts on the U.K. weren’t limited to pillorying Starmer this weekend.
He asked why British far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson — jailed in the summer after admitting to breaching a court order imposed after he spread libelous claims in a documentary about a Syrian refugee schoolboy — had been imprisoned at all. Musk also approvingly shared Robinson’s documentary to his more than 200 million followers on the platform he owns.
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