Nick Candy, the billionaire husband of Holly Valance says Elon Musk wants to help Reform win next election
Nick Candy, the husband of Aussie star Holly Valance who has defected to Nigel Farage’s party and already pledged a million pounds, reveals his plans to get Elon Musk on board.
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When Nick Candy, the multimillionaire property developer and donor to the UK’s Conservative party, announced on Tuesday that he was jumping ship to become Reform UK’s treasurer, his phone began ringing incessantly.
Having promised a “seven-figure sum” to help Nigel Farage’s insurgent party win power, Candy was greeted with dozens of messages from other would-be donors pledging support. He believes he can raise between pounds 25 million and pounds 40 million by the next election, and will himself give pounds 1 million.
Within hours, he was exchanging messages with Elon Musk too. Having helped to propel Donald Trump back into the White House, one of the world’s richest men appears keen to help Farage and Candy pull off a similar feat in Britain.
This weekend Candy, 51, who counts ex-prime ministers and A-list celebrities as friends, made clear that he sees it as his personal mission to ensure that Musk does precisely that. “Elon’s managed to do an incredible job for president-elect Trump and he’s sort of changed the political spectrum in America,” he said. “We would like him to help … I would like him to help.”
Two weeks ago The Sunday Times revealed rumours that Musk – who bonded with Farage via his friendship with Trump – was considering making an unprecedented donation to Reform. However, Farage and others have been keen to manage expectations amid suggestions of a dollars 100 million (pounds 78 million) gift. So is Musk going to donate or not?
“I don’t want to go too much into the personal side of it,” Candy said when asked whether he and Musk had talked about money. “But he, I think, would like to help Nigel and Reform and myself.”
While Candy added that this would need to be “within the rules and regulations”, he made a point of highlighting the fact Musk is “legally allowed to donate through his companies that are registered in the UK … whether that’s Tesla or whether that’s X”.
For Candy, the prize is not just Musk’s money but his insights on how to win an election. Musk played an integral role in helping Trump to win the seven swing states that decided the US presidency, particularly Pennsylvania, with his America “superPac” (political action committee) spending dollars 118 million to beat the Democrats’ superior ground operation.
“He knows how to get things done,” Candy said. “I want to understand how he got those people out in Pennsylvania. I want to learn from him, so I can learn from the ground game.”
Asked whether he would ask Musk directly for advice, Candy replied: “You might be seeing something soon on that.” Pressed on whether that meant that a visit to the US might now be on the cards, he declined to comment.
However, behind closed doors Candy is indeed in talks about a meeting. It is understood that in recent days he has been phoning US contacts and exploring the possibility of meeting Musk in America to discuss strategies and ideas that Farage and Reform could adopt. Candy and Farage declined to comment.
That Candy is at the centre of a revolution on the British political right would have seemed inconceivable to his younger self. As a child growing up in London, he said that every weekend his parents would take him and his younger brother, Christian, to look “around homes they couldn’t afford to buy”.
Today (Sunday), at 51, Candy is one of the country’s most successful property developers. He could buy all those houses he looked longingly at as a child and still have money left over.
Last week, we visited Candy in his mansion in Chelsea, southwest London – previously owned by Sir Robert Walpole, the first British prime minister – where he has hosted Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Tony Blair. This year Candy’s wife, the actress and pop star Holly Valance, hosted Donald Trump Jr for the largest Republican fundraiser to take place outside the US.
Behind high walls and extensive security, the mansion has, in its two acres of grounds, several guest houses, an ornate glass summer house, a separate party space and a two-storey playhouse with a wraparound balcony for their daughters, Luka, 11, and Nova, seven. There are 137 rooms in total, including Europe’s first private Imax cinema in the basement.
At one point during the interview Candy is unable to let himself into his own house because he does not know how. The person employed to open the door for him has gone awol. One of his daughters rollerblades up and inputs the code to the door on her father’s behalf.
What did that young boy looking around homes his parents could not afford to buy want to be when he grew up? “Successful,” he said.
His Greek-Cypriot mother was an actress and his British father ran an art production studio in Soho.
In one of several living rooms, there is a photograph of Candy with Sir Elton John at one of his concerts in Brighton, with David Walliams and the comedian John Bishop. The singer organised Candy’s stag-do shortly before his marriage to Valance in 2012.
In the next room there is an oil painting by Winston Churchill – Les Zoriades on Cap Martin – which Candy intends to offer to Trump on loan for display in the White House.
Candy said he has received millions of pounds of pledges, including from a recent big-time Tory donor who says they would be willing to stump up pounds 5 million. While he refused to name names, The Sunday Times is aware of at least one other donor who is publicly loyal to the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, but has messaged Candy making clear they like Farage and will be watching the polls.
Asked whether one of his key aims was to convince other Tory donors to follow him on the journey to Reform, he replied: “I don’t need to take them on a journey, they are already on the train. The train has left the station.”
Ca
ndy is as politically well travelled as he is well connected. In 1997 he voted for Blair, whom he considers a personal friend. He is also close to Lord Mandelson, the Labour consigliere hotly tipped to become the UK’s ambassador to the US, who he said was “one of the smartest individuals you will meet” and would be a “very clever” appointment by Starmer.
Drawn to charismatic leaders, Candy switched to the Tories in 2009, having been impressed by David Cameron, whom he helped “at the beginning” with pounds 70,000 in donations. He later formed a close friendship with Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie, giving pounds 270,000 to the Tories during his premiership.
However, Candy says that after Johnson was ousted in 2022 he became increasingly disillusioned with the Tories and what he sees as the abandonment of traditional conservative values.
While he does not know Badenoch – they have spoken only once, at a Tory fundraising ball – he describes her as “continuity Kemi” and argues that her election shows that the Tories were “too scared to make the right decision” and elect a leader on the right who is serious about tackling immigration.
Despite his defection, Candy remains close to the Johnsons and Blair. Shortly before his press conference with Farage on Tuesday, he rang both men to explain his reasons for joining Reform.
While he refuses to reveal the contents of their discussions, sources have said the Johnsons made no attempt to change his mind.
He decided to defect on November 5, the day Trump’s return to the White House was confirmed. Believing that Reform, like Trump’s Maga Republicans in the US, could take over the British right, he had dinner with Reform’s four other MPs – Farage was in the US – and told them: “If you’re going to get this together and win the next election, you need someone to do the money side.”
Candy and Valance met Farage about a decade ago in Montenegro. They were staying on their superyacht, the 11.11, with David Walliams and his son, when “a mutual friend of ours said ‘Nigel’s in town with his daughters, would you like to meet him?’” said Candy. “And I said ‘yes please!’” Farage came, along with two of his children, for drinks early in the evening. “They were meant to go for dinner at about nine and at 2am I still couldn’t get them gone,” he laughs.
The Reform leader went on to become such a close family friend that Candy’s daughters call him “Uncle Nigel” and Valance was one of three people to give a speech at Farage’s 60th birthday party last year. In April 2022 Farage took his friends to Mar-a-Lago, where they met Trump. “He was amazing – absolutely amazing,” said Candy.
It has been a remarkable journey. Born in London in 1973, Candy and his brother, Christian, attended Epsom College, a private school in Surrey. “Dad would have great times in business when the boom times were happening, and when the recession came my grandma would have to pay the school fees because my dad couldn’t afford it.”
After school, Candy took a geography degree at the University of Reading, and, with a pounds 6,000 loan from their grandmother, he and his brother bought a one-bedroom flat in Earl’s Court, west London, did it up and flipped it for a pounds 50,000 profit. From there they built a property empire, Candy & Candy.
The brothers have since separated their business affairs. Christian has moved to the Bahamas and Nick has expanded his investments into a number of fields, from technology to fashion.
Is a move into frontline politics now on the cards for this the family? Valance nearly stood to be a Reform MP at the last general election, in the Essex constituency of Basildon & Billericay. On polling day, Candy says, she turned to him and said: “I regret not running now.”
So how about next time? “It would need to be the Cotswolds or central London,” says Candy. Basildon was too far away to work with for their family life. He acknowledges that Reform needs “some female politicians”, given that all five of its MPs are men.
Candy said he was not interested in a place in parliament himself. “I don’t want to be in the House of Lords. I don’t want to be in government.” By the time of the next election, “I might not be here. There’s a 50/50 chance I won’t be there.”
He spends much of his time in what he calls his “big four places”: Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia: “You don’t need to worry about crime, security, infrastructure, and it’s a great quality of life. They’ve got a can-do attitude of getting things done.” Later, he adds: “I cherish the values we grew up with here in the West. But today (Sunday) you are more likely to find the values we grew up with in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.”
Is there anything Candy wants that he cannot have? “I think there are materialistic things. I love watches but you can only wear one watch at a time,” he said. “I love cars, I love great wine, but you can only drink one bottle at a time … even with Nigel Farage.”
And yet all the money in the world cannot turn your country into a place you want to live. Candy is downbeat about the next four years. “I’m ready to leave” for one of the big four. “But I said to Nigel, I’ll give it one last go and I’ll try to help you raise all the money.”
Perhaps Candy is about to find out whether money can turn your country into a place you want to live. “I want to be able to give something back.”
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