Tech billionaire and Trump advisor Elon Musk, a man rarely burdened by quotidian concerns like propriety or long-standing diplomatic ties, called for Britain’s prime minister to be jailed on Monday and joked that the US should invade its ally.
“Prison for Starmer,” Musk wrote on X, referring to British PM Keir Starmer, whose center-left party came to power in the United Kingdom last summer. Hours later, Musk posted a poll asking his followers whether America “should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government.”
The late-night posts represent just the latest escalation in Musk’s attacks on Starmer—and his loudmouthed meddling in European politics—as a whole. Since Donald Trump’s election, the tech billionaire and “first buddy” has increasingly used his public platform to endorse far-right movements abroad, amplify right-wing propaganda, and otherwise aggravate mainstream politicians and U.S. allies the world over. Trump has also invited Musk, who officially co-chairs a new advisory board on government spending, to sit in on his meetings with foreign leaders.
Starmer is proving a favorite punching bag. Musk has repeatedly criticized the Labour Party PM for his handling of the anti-immigrant riots that convulsed the UK last summer, as well as his party’s policies on crime, speech, and economic growth. Musk initially favored Nigel Farage, the flamboyant Reform Party leader and Brexit architect. But he abruptly reversed that position over the weekend: “The Reform Party needs a new leader,” Musk wrote on X, after Farage criticized the jailed anti-immigration activist Tommy Robinson, whom Musk has enthusiastically supported.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, too, has faced Musk’s very public criticism. The billionaire mogul has called Scholz a “fool” and an “oaf” who “will lose,” and published an op-ed in a German newspaper endorsing Alternative for Germany, a right-wing populist party, in the country’s upcoming snap election. German officials have largely downplayed the impact of Musk’s meddling, accusing the billionaire of “trying to influence the federal election,” but also dismissing his opinions as “the greatest nonsense.” “Don’t feed the troll,” Scholz said in a weekend interview with the German weekly Stern.
Other European leaders have been less blasé about Musk’s growing political interference: On Monday, the leader of Britain’s Liberal Democratic Party called on the U.S. ambassador to explain “why an incoming US official is suggesting the UK government should be overthrown.” Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre also told state broadcaster NRK on Monday that he found Musk’s influence “worrying,” while French President Emmanual Macron called it unimaginable that “the owner of one of the largest social networks in the world would support a new international reactionary movement and intervene directly in elections.”
Trump, for his part, is not off to a particularly diplomatic start either. He has repeatedly joked about annexing Canada, declared he will buy Greenland and the Panama Canal from unwilling partners, and has threatened steep punitive tariffs against some of America’s largest trading partners.
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