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Michelle Goldberg

Elon Musk, the most powerful troll on Earth, targets the UK

As the world’s richest man and a quasi-official member of Trump’s team, Musk has enormous influence, and his admirers in both America and Britain have taken up the cause.

More than a decade ago, a horrific sex-trafficking scandal rocked Britain. Starting in the late 1990s, thousands of mostly white girls in the post-industrial north of England, many from struggling families, were groomed by networks of mostly Pakistani men, who often professed to be their boyfriends before trapping them in a hell of repeated rape and prostitution. Several girls were murdered.

The mass abuse went on for years as those who tried to sound the alarm – including Sara Rowbotham, a health worker in the town of Rochdale; a Manchester detective constable, Maggie Oliver; and a member of Parliament from West Yorkshire, Ann Cryer – were largely ignored.

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Michelle Goldberg is a columnist with the New York Times.

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    Original URL: https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/elon-musk-the-most-powerful-troll-on-earth-targets-the-uk-20250107-p5l2lr