Week-in-Review: Keir Starmer needs an Elon Musk strategy – Politics.co.uk

Only hours before, addressing the Westminster press gallery’s annual reception, UK prime minister Keir Starmer had looked forward to a “long night looking across the water”. “It is going to be a marathon, not a sprint”, Starmer insisted as he urged cabinet colleagues to “tweet responsibly”. 

The comment suggested Starmer, like most observers, had misread the contours of the race. As Trump hurtled towards 270 electoral votes, UK politicos (including new Tory leader Kemi Badenoch) focussed on how the prime minister would cope with a more unpredictable and vengeful Trump 2.0. 

Subsequent briefing, distributed from deep inside No 10 Downing Street, insisted the Starmer administration was entirely ready for, even expecting, a Republican victory. But Downing Street’s pre-election wargaming, however scrupulous, could not have accounted for Elon Musk’s sudden stardom. Starmer and Musk’s skirmishes have been a prevalent feature of the PM’s premiership — a reality that now looks set to intensify. 

After all, Trump’s election night gratitude was well targeted: the fusion of Musk’s financial, political and cultural clout had played a significant role in his comeback tour. Musk’s roughly $200 million donation to the Republican’s election effort made him one of the biggest donors ever in a single US presidential campaign cycle. Meanwhile, X, the social media platform Musk bought in 2022 for $44 billion was converted into another media appendage of the Republican Party.

Elon Musk’s X makes ‘good argument’ for limiting hate speech, says former Conservative chairman

In some narrow senses, Musk’s power and aims are familiar. His war on government waste, and antipathy for allegedly idle civil servants, reflects the worldview of the UK Conservative Party’s libertarian wing. In light of DOGE, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg’s erstwhile role as minister for government efficiency looks remarkably ahead of its time, (how ironic for the “honourable Member for the 18th century”). Meanwhile, the X chief’s plan to recruit “high-IQ small-government revolutionaries” mirrors Dominic Cummings’ induction of “weirdos and misfits with odd skills” into No 10. Others have drawn parallels between Musk’s media empire and that of Rupert Murdoch’s at his peak.  

Musk is sui generis, though, because he does it all. Musk occupies all spaces: cultural, technological, political, financial — and therefore a space entirely of his own. Of course, if Starmer is to resolve on a strategy that could contain or manage Musk, he must first understand him. But the tech tycoon’s manifold means make his endgame almost impossible to read. Combine these considerations with Musk’s mercurial manner and the more unknowable his designs appear. (That said, it is entirely possible that, like any good political populist, Musk reacts to circumstance rather than in pursuit of a singular strategy.)

***Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for all the latest news and analysis.***

It is nonetheless worth asking: where does Musk’s unyielding and escalating war on Keir Starmer feature in his wider weltanschauung? Lampooning the PM, Musk must realise, won’t aid his extra-terrestrial ambitions. 

The prime minister had only been in office for weeks when Musk fired his first shot. As Starmer reckoned with the outbreak of far right riots following the spread of misinformation (including on X) about the fatal stabbing of three young girls in Southport, Musk intervened. He described arrests as “messed up”, responded “yes” to a post that claimed Starmer was imprisoning people “who commit thought crimes on X”, and predicted the outbreak of “civil war”.

A spokesperson for Keir Starmer addressed this latter comment, arguing there was “no justification” for the intervention. But this softest of rebukes only emboldened the tech tycoon. Buoyed by the attention, Musk attacked Starmer personally only hours later. “Shouldn’t you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?”, Musk asked acidly, in response to the PM’s condemnation of violence towards Muslims.

At this most febrile juncture, after a week of consistent attacks on Labour’s “Stalinist” policies, all signs indicate an escalation of hostilities in the Musk-Starmer war. And the rancour could be about to assume a more mutual footing. In recent months, ministers have repeatedly expressed concerns about the failure of social media companies, including X, to take prompt action against misinformation.

As rioting escalated in the summer, Starmer issued a pointed warning to social media companies: “Violent disorder was clearly whipped up online”, he said, “That is also a crime. It is happening on your premises, and the law must be upheld everywhere.”

Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, held meetings with TikTok, Meta, Google and X about misinformation and incitement at the time. He said: “Different companies take different approaches and I expect platforms to ensure that those seeking to spread hate online are not being facilitated and have nowhere to hide.”

And crucially, the Online Safety Act is due to kick in early next year. The legislation is aimed at bearing down on the spread of harmful content on social media, with policing overseen by regulator Ofcom. The last government did water down the legislation to remove a provision to regulate “legal but harmful” content; but non-compliance with the new rules could still result in fines of up to 10 per cent of global turnover and even amount to criminal charges being brought against executives.

***Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for all the latest news and analysis.***

At this stage, the government is expected to focus on ensuring the Online Safety Act’s provisions are implemented effectively. But a new inquiry by the cross-party science, innovation and technology committee of MPs will, as part of its wide remit, assess the effectiveness of current and proposed regulation for social media, including the Online Safety Act. The committee could, in time, recommend the government strengthen online regulation to tackle hate-galvanising algorithms. 

Of course, any attempts to beef up regulation will find in Musk, the self-declared “free speech absolutist”, a consummate and relentlessly aggressive opponent. 

Chi Onwurah: ‘Why I hope Elon Musk accepts my invitation to address MPs’

The greatest evidence of Musk’s power, stretching far beyond his position in Trump’s inner circle, is his ability to launch — through a single retweet or supportive emoji — a fringe conspiracy theory into mainstream conversations. But misinformation doesn’t need Musk’s retweeting thumb to proliferate on social media — X’s algorithms are often enough. Just this week, a provably and wildly false post that claimed Starmer represented the father of Southport suspect Axel Rudakubana in an asylum case went viral on X. The tweet in question is still live, having amassed 5.3 million views and 27,000 likes. 

Starmer, his remarks in the wake of the Southport riots indicate, recognises the situation is untenable. But all possible solutions, including the full implementation of the Online Safety Act, pose profound geopolitical, reputational and ethical quandaries. What is certain, however, is that the fraught relationship between the British government and the world’s richest man looks set to degrade markedly in the months to come. Indeed, it’s a process that began this week, Politics.co.uk‘s own analysis suggests. 

‘Britain is going full Stalin’: Elon Musk’s war with UK government escalates after Trump appointment

Starmer needs a strategy then, to ride the crashing waves of misinformation, geopolitical foment and Musk slights that loom on the horizon. And the circle Starmer’s approach must square, in essence, is this: the prime minister doesn’t have the political capital or cultural clout to pursue a feud with Musk (and that is before one considers the possible geopolitical implications). But nor can the PM continue to ignore Musk’s increasingly aggressive attacks, which are hardening a view of this government as at war on all fronts. Nor, of course, can the government ignore the misinformation that plagues social media, often at his and Britain’s expense. 

Starmer is stuck as an unwilling player in a zero sum game. Perhaps his goal, at this stage, should be to ensure the Musk feud doesn’t consume the next few weeks or months of his premiership. Perhaps, in time, Trump might eject Musk from his inner circle and the geopolitical implications of a deeper feud will lessen. But until then, ministers could conclude that some trolls are too big to ignore. 

Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky here.

Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for all the latest news and analysis.