Elon Musk has backed away from his support for Nigel Farage, leader of the populist British Reform Party, after a row over the tech billionaire’s call for the release of a jailed far-right activist.
Musk said on Sunday that the UK’s Reform Party should change its leader after Farage distanced himself from anti-Islam activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson.
“The Reform Party needs a new leader. Farage doesn’t have what it takes,” Musk posted on his social media site, X.
Musk last week wrongly claimed that Yaxley Lennon, who is serving an 18-month prison sentence for contempt of court, had been jailed for “telling the truth” about the child grooming scandal that rocked the UK during the 2000s.
Yaxley-Lennon received the sentence after admitting breaching an injunction against repeating false allegations about a Syrian refugee schoolboy who successfully sued him for defamation.
Asked about Musk’s support for Laxley-Lennon on Friday, Farage said the activist had been jailed for contempt of court, not for speaking out against grooming gangs.
“We are a political party aiming to win the next general election. (Yaxley-Lennon) is not what we need,” Farage told GB News.
Musk’s criticism of Farage comes after the Tesla and SpaceX CEO publicly backed the UK’s Reform Party, saying it was the only party that could “save Britain”.
Last month, Farage told the BBC that the UK Reform Party was in “open negotiations” with Musk over his donation to the party.
Responding to Musk on Sunday, Farage said the billionaire’s comments were a “surprise” but that he would not change his position.
“Well, here’s a surprise!” Elon is a special person, but I’m afraid I don’t agree with that opinion.
“My view remains that Tommy Robinson is not fit for reform and I never sell out my principles.”
Musk, who has repeatedly been ranked as the richest man in the world, has entered politics in various countries with increasing frequency since he announced his support for US President-elect Donald Trump during his re-election campaign.
He claimed on Thursday that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer had failed to bring grooming gangs to justice while he was director of public prosecutions and should face “charges of complicity in the worst mass crime in British history”.
British Health Minister Wes Streeting said Musk’s views on the issue were “misjudged and certainly misguided.”
A 2014 investigation found that at least 1,400 children were sexually exploited in Rotherham, northern England, between 1997 and 2013.
The report, prepared by academic Alexis Jay, concluded that authorities in the town had repeatedly failed to act on allegations of abuse, with some council staff expressing “nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of the perpetrators for fear of being seen as racists”.
The perpetrators in the Rotherham case were overwhelmingly described by their victims as South Asian, although a 2020 study commissioned by the Home Office found that most perpetrators in cases of group-based child sexual exploitation are white.
Musk, who is set to co-lead the so-called Government Efficiency Administration in the incoming Trump administration, last month backed the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party, which German security services have labeled a suspected extremist organization.
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