What is Starmer to do about Musk the troll?

The world’s richest man has become a thorn in Labour’s side. It would be unwise to write Musk off as a keyboard warrior, as he is for now, at least, an adopted member of the Trump family.

Elon Musk has taken great delight in needling the UK’s Labour Party.

Even as its sixth month and first calendar year in government begin, Labour is still learning new things about power and its burdens. The other day one of the first-time MPs popped up in a WhatsApp group for the 2024 intake with a question about their tax return. Could they claim back the coffees they’d bought in Portcullis House as a business expense?

The questions niggling at Sir Keir Starmer are a little more difficult than that. First and foremost: what is the prime minister to do about the world’s richest man and his vendetta against the Labour Party?

Exactly who is responsible for the grid of government announcements has been a matter of some debate. Failing to fill it was part of the reason Sue Gray lost her job as chief of staff, though she always maintained it was the responsibility of Morgan McSweeney and Starmer’s spinners.

Either way it was a pointless row because these days Elon Musk is taking care of the headlines for them. This week alone he has declared Britain a wasteland for international investment, blamed Starmer for the misery inflicted by grooming gangs in Oldham and elsewhere, and suggested Jess Phillips take Tommy Robinson’s place in prison.

When ministers and diplomats console themselves ahead of Donald Trump’s second inauguration, we often hear them suggest that the once and future president is an Anglophile.

Musk jumps on stage as he joins Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in October. Picture; AFP

That may, just about, be true but what does that make Musk? Proud grandson of a Liverpudlian though he may be, Britain exists in his imagination, and on X, as a dystopia of wokery, totalitarian thought police and violent crime. There’s none of Trump’s inherited affection for the old country there (perhaps Elon’s nan went in for the Scouse not the English thing), just doom and gloom and attacks on a prime minister Musk believes to pose a mortal threat to free speech.

There’s a world in which Musk’s constant criticism of the government might merely be irritating. But then he is not merely a wealthy businessman. It would be unwise to write Musk off as a keyboard warrior. For now, at least, he is an adopted member of the Trump family. He owns the social network that makes dead-eyed junkies out of Washington and Westminster and still drives much of our political agenda. SpaceX’s rockets and satellites might yet transform warfare. So, yeah, you would probably rather not be this guy’s whipping boy if you were Starmer. You’d probably want a constructive relationship with him instead. But what can the PM do?

Perhaps the answer is nothing. That, after all, is the revealed preference of No 10. “They don’t want to pick a fight with Musk,” says one Labour insider, “and they discourage those that do.”

From Downing Street spokesmen you hear very mild rebukes or rebuttals - they lightly contested the claim that nobody wants to invest in Britain, for instance - but the gloves stay on. Whether this self-denying ordinance can survive more prolonged disruption is another question.

As 2025 begins, Musk is no longer a jaundiced commentator on British politics but a power player within it. Even if his mooted $100m donation to Reform UK comes to nothing, both Farage and the Tories are now part of his feedback loop: just as he rails against grooming gangs, Kemi Badenoch calls for a public inquiry.

“The problem,” sighs another senior government figure, “is that the British right are loading him up with terrible stuff.”

The problem is slightly more complicated than that. In the space of a single hour Musk can advance a staple point of City consensus - that business taxes are too high, for instance - commend Robert Jenrick for something or other, endorse Dame Andrea Jenkyns as the first mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, and then go further than even Farage would ever go, praising Robinson as a hero and martyr. He says all of this while holding immense commercial power and political influence over the leader whose whims will determine the parameters of European security for the rest of this decade.

Starmer and Labour have come under constant attack from Musk. Picture: AFP

The nub of what he says is on occasion uncontroversial even inside No 10. McSweeney, for instance, has long been critical of the liberal left’s response - though not Starmer’s individual role - to the grooming scandals Musk now rails against.

So where does Starmer even start trying to limit the damage this relationship might do to Britain’s economic and diplomatic interests? Silicon Valley is a good bet. Despite everything, at the top of government they still see Musk as a businessman, albeit an eccentric one. The ministers who matter - Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting - also put a great deal of store in technology and AI as antidotes to economic malaise. That, some suggest hopefully, might be the basis for a constructive relationship with Musk the chief executive rather than Musk the troll.

Making it happen will be a job for two Peters: Mandelson, the incoming US ambassador, and Kyle, the science and technology secretary. So evangelical is Kyle about what Britain has to offer big tech that he spent his Christmas holiday in California meeting Silicon Valley executives, though notably Musk’s lieutenants at X were not among them. Mandelson will hope they are more forthcoming when he makes his move to Washington.

Might Nigel help? Both Mandelson and Farage have been notably complimentary about each other of late but I understand there is no plan for the Reform leader to play matchmaker, even informally. What about Sir Tony? Blair is one of the few people in British politics with any claim to know Musk personally.

“Elon,” says a friend, “is on Tony’s billionaire speed dial.” Yet the former prime minister will have little desire to burn through his capital on Starmer’s behalf. Instead Downing Street is likely to wait and see.

Once the Trump court leaves Mar-a-Lago for the White House later this month, can Musk really run a freelance foreign policy and keep his place in the kitchen cabinet? Some in Starmer’s inner circle hope not.

“He can’t sustain active support for AfD and Reform and be a member of the administration after January 20. He’s in effect declaring war on the main US allies in Europe.”

Starmer’s praetorian guard are investing their hopes in the deep state as well as big tech. They hope Marco Rubio, the incoming secretary of state, Scott Bessent, soon to take control at the Treasury, and Michael Waltz, the national security adviser who met McSweeney and Jonathan Powell, the UK national security adviser, last month, will lay down the law and rein Musk in. On this week’s evidence, it may already be too late.

The Times