In 2024, Elon Musk’s attention was focused directly on the United States governmental election. In the early days of 2025, the X owner has actually turned his look towards the UK. Musk has actually feverishly invested the previous couple of days increasing disinformation and dissentious rhetoric on X about Muslim grooming gangs in the UK, publishing nearly 200 times, a WIRED evaluation of the centibillionaire’s output has actually discovered.
These “grooming gangs” reference an arranged kid sexual assault scandal that emerged in 2014 including gangs of British Pakastani guys who abused an approximated countless women in a number of towns in the north of England throughout a number of years.
Musk’s interest in this concern appeared to peak after a brand-new report from conservative news station GB News declared the existing Labour federal government has actually stopped working to secure the victims by declining to sanction a government-led questions.
Throughout his three-day publishing binge, Musk has actually required UK federal government authorities to be hanged and imprisoned, required the elimination of Keir Starmer as UK prime minister, and recommended well-known reactionary activist Tommy Robinson be launched from jail.
Robinson was imprisoned after confessing contempt of court in 2015 for constantly duplicating incorrect claims about a Syrian refugee that caused the refugee and his household getting death dangers. Musk has actually wrongly declared that Robinson was imprisoned for “informing the fact” about grooming gangs. Musk is likewise pressing the story that arranged kid sex abuse is performed nearly solely by Muslim males, when a 2020 UK federal government research study discovered that was not the case
Musk’s flurry of posts and responds comes simply months after anti-immigrant riots roiled the UKfomented by reactionary activists who spread out false information about a knife attack.
Musk’s posts, which have actually acquired numerous countless views on X, are simply his most current effort at placing himself into UK politics. In the wake of his effective efforts to help president-elect Donald Trump in the United States election, Musk has actually turned his attention to supporting the conservative Reform Party in the UK. The celebration is headed by Trump ally Nigel Farage; Musk fulfilled him at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in December. Musk’s public recommendation of Reform has raised concerns in the UK about the possible impact of foreign donors on UK elections.
A petition Musk shared in November requiring the elimination of Starmer has actually up until now accumulated more than 3 million signatures, and over the previous 3 days Musk has actually communicated with a variety of popular figures about the grooming gangs scandal, consisting of mainstream UK political figures like Farage and previous Conservative Party leader Liz Truss. Musk has actually likewise enhanced material from extremist figures Carl Benjamin, who was a significant individual in the Gamergate motion, and Tristan Tate, who is implicated of human trafficking and rape and is the bro of manosphere influencer Andrew Tate
“They need to get the severest penalty, hang them for treason,” Musk composed in reaction to a post from reactionary UK legislator Robert Jenrick requiring the prosecution of federal government authorities “associated with the Muslim grooming gang cover-up.”
The report that triggered Musk’s interest previously today declared that Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips had actually turned down a demand from a city board for a government-led questions into kid sexual exploitation in Oldham, a town near Manchester in the north of England that was one among the locations where claims of abuse from grooming gangs were made.
While Musk and his allies declare this becomes part of a bigger federal government cover-up, Phillips in fact composed in a letter that it was “for Oldham Council alone to choose to commission a query into kid sexual exploitation in your area, instead of for the federal government to step in.” The previous Conservative-led federal government likewise turned down Oldham’s require a government-led query in 2022.
Musk has actually gotten in touch with Phillips to be imprisoned and called her “a rape genocide apologist.” Both Musk and Phillips did not react to WIRED’s ask for remark.
Musk is likewise utilizing the report to call, when again, for Starmer’s elimination as prime minister.
“Starmer was complicit in the RAPE OF BRITAIN when he was head of Crown Prosecution for 6 years,” Musk composed on X on Friday early morning, in a post that is now pinned to the top of his timeline. “Starmer needs to go and he needs to deal with charges for his complicity in the worst mass criminal activity in the history of Britain.”
Starmer, in his function as director of public prosecutions over a years earlier, in fact started the prosecution of a grooming gang in Rochdale and presented brand-new guidelines focused on permitting sexual assault cases to be prosecuted.
Starmer and the UK federal government press workplace did not react for remark, however health secretary Wes Streeting informed the BBC that Musk’s remarks were “misjudged and definitely disinformed.”
Musk has actually likewise drawn a variety of conservative United States figures into the discussion, consisting of accounts like Chaya Raichik, who runs the virulently anti-LGBTQ account Libs of TikTok, anti-transgender activist Riley Gaines, conservative analyst Ian Miles Cheong, and disgraced previous United States nationwide security advisor Michael Flynn.
United States senator Mike Lee likewise weighed-in, composing on X: “Does the UK requirement to be freed?”
“Yes,” Musk reacted.
Expense Ackman, a hedge fund supervisor and Trump advocate, duplicated Musk’s narrative practically verbatim in a post on X. He then asked if the president-elect would “think about proper sanctions versus the UK till these issues are resolved.”
In a post on Friday early morning, Musk improved a require King Charles to liquify the UK parliament and order a basic election. While the queen in the UK does liquify parliament ahead of the basic election, it is just done at the demand of the prime minister, and the king’s power is, in result, absolutely nothing more than a rubber stamp.
