Elon Musk: from tech mogul to political provocateur — how did he become Trump's BFF?
“I’m not evil, I’m just misunderstood.”
Back in 2021, when Elon Musk made this rather tongue-in-cheek confession on Saturday Night Live, one might have been forgiven for giving him the benefit of the doubt. At that stage, he was merely the quirky billionaire owner of Tesla, and, while having a fair few controversies under his belt, was no more a social pariah than any other big tech mogul. Named Time’s person of the Year that year, he was praised for using his platform to raise awareness about Asperger’s syndrome, moving cryptocurrency into the mainstream and expanding the electric vehicle industry.
That was, of course, all before his takeover of X/Twitter. Three years later, and Musk has become synonymous with the platform, which has in turn been transformed into a hotbed of misinformation, radicalisation and hate.
No clearer was this than last weekend, when, after days of far-right, racist rioting in the UK which had been fuelled by conspiracy theories on X, Musk decided to weigh in on the chaos. Responding to a tweet with footage of the disorder that said the riots were due to the "effects of mass migration and open borders", Musk tweeted, "civil war is inevitable".
Despite being criticised by Starmer’s official spokesperson, Musk didn’t stop there. “Shouldn’t you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?” Musk asked in response to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s rightful condemnation of violence towards British Muslims. He then called the Prime Minister “#TwoTierKeir”, referencing the far-right, debunked conspiracy theory that the police treat white, right-wing protesters more harshly than minority left-wing groups.
Musk has – a fringe, four-times jailed extreme right British activist – multiple times since the riots, retweeting and replying to
