Elon Musk is now interested in tax relief for British farmers who inherit properties worth more than a million pounds and who, in some cases, will have to start paying part of the taxes that would correspond to them from 2026. The removal of farm property benefits requested last year by some 500 farmers and included in Keir Starmer’s government budget is the latest excuse for the richest man’s hyperbolic attack on Labor of the world, owner of Tesla and X and advisor to Donald Trump.
Musk said in a post on his network on Monday that the United Kingdom is “pure Stalin”, a reference to the forced famine in Ukraine due to the Soviet dictator’s policies between 1932 and 1933, known as Holodomor, which caused the death of more than four million people and which the European Parliament describes as “genocide”. Musk made the unrelated comment hours before an anti-government farmers’ protest in London. The billionaire used a link from the newspaper Tutorwho announced a few days ago that he had stopped sharing his content on X because he preferred to devote his efforts to promoting his journalism on another less toxic and more productive network.
The defense of the richest farm owners – those most affected are those with land valued at more than three million pounds and the majority will continue not to pay inheritance tax – is the latest example of southern intervention. African-American in UK debates.
Anti-immigration riots
Since Starmer was elected prime minister in the July 4 elections, Musk has paid more attention to the United Kingdom than any other country outside the United States and has fueled the most extreme criticism and hoaxes against Starmer, often using and promoting keywords from local political culture. . For example, he has spread the idea without evidence that there is “two-tier policing” in the UK, which is harsher when criminals are white than when they are minorities. Musk was particularly active in August, spewing lies that played a role in sparking the anti-immigration riots.
The owner of the House of Commons will call Musk to testify before a parliamentary committee to question him about X’s role in spreading disinformation during the riots, as published this Wednesday. Tutor.
Musk rarely comments on current events in other countries, although he also attacked a few days ago the judges who had prevented the expulsions of asylum seekers to Albania by the government of Giorgia Meloni. Italian President Sergio Mattarella asked Musk not to intervene in his country’s affairs.
Freedom of expression for him
Musk’s main battle against the UK in recent months, before Starmer came to power, has been against any criticism or intention of sanctioning for the dissemination of threats or incitement to hatred and violence, which which is common in the press of this country. subject to more limits on defamation and interference in legal processes than other European neighbors. The fight against regulation is one of the crusades behind Musk’s aggressive campaign, which has already clashed – and even conceded in court – with other governments, such as Brazil’s.
Last year, the previous British government, led by Conservative Rishi Sunak, approved a law that requires networks to protect minors, particularly from violent, pornographic or self-harming content, and gives the communications regulator the power to force networks to remove this content. under the threat of fines representing 10% of its turnover, or even criminal sanctions for its managers. The law will come into effect in spring 2025 and could conflict with thousands of accounts on X that are now not subject to any moderation.
Shortly after taking control of Twitter in 2022, Musk lifted the suspension of accounts of neo-Nazis and other extremists in the UK, including activist and convicted criminal Tommy Robinson (he is now in prison for the fifth time, this time for contempt). . and after several convictions, notably for physical violence, harassment of a journalist, defamation of a 15-year-old Syrian refugee and entry into the United States with a false passport).
The owner of He also tried and continues to fight against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, an Anglo-American non-profit organization focused on documenting and combating hatred on the Internet. With an academic study, the center recorded the increase in racist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and misogynistic attacks and threats after Musk’s purchase, and the new owner accused him of “illegally” using his messages during the investigation to document what is happening. in X.
The increase in threats and attacks has been widely documented in English by this organization and other specialized organizations, such as the Anti-Defamation League.
A California judge dismissed Musk’s suit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate in March this year and chastised the millionaire for trying to “punish” free speech. But the billionaire and Trump advisor has not given up, and a few weeks ago he denounced the alleged “electoral interference” of this organization in the American elections because the CEO is the British Imran Ahmed, a former Labor consultant. Musk did so with his usual rhetoric, calling the group of academics and nonprofit activists a “criminal organization.”
The Starmer Summit
One of the supposed causes of Musk’s political transformation into Trump’s top donor and spokesperson is that President Joe Biden did not invite him to a 2021 meeting on electric cars and that he started to drive an electric Ford, one of Tesla’s competitors. The disagreement had already existed for a long time, notably over Biden’s support for unions, which Musk wants to dismantle while he proclaims himself defender of “the working class” with Trump (the president-elect had already harmed unions with his regulations during his first term and he should start again with Musk at his side). Starmer’s closeness to unions and advocacy for labor rights also clash with Musk’s preferences.
In September, Tesla owners and their social media posts” (this is not the case, and the early release of some prisoners convicted of less serious crimes than pedophilia was already planned by the Conservative government before the election due to overcrowding in prisons). British prisons).
Despite the attack, the Starmer government tried to downplay the incident, congratulated SpaceX and assured that it was a meeting for investors with concrete projects currently in the UK, and that it would invite Musk in the future at other meetings more relevant to your business. .
Before actively entering politics, Musk decided in 2019 to build a new Tesla factory in Germany rather than the UK due to the uncertainty created by Brexit. In 2023, he flirted with the idea of building a factory in England, but this did not materialize.
According to Downing Street sources, the British newspaper Yothe Starmer government has been working, especially since Trump’s victory, to establish “communication channels” with Musk through other contacts at tech companies in order to appease the billionaire advisor. But Starmer fits the ideological definition that Musk hates, and so far it doesn’t look like the attempt is bearing fruit. Peter Mandelson, Tony Blair’s former spokesman and strategist and former EU commissioner, who now aspires to become UK ambassador to the US and/or rector of Oxford University, has a particular suggestion: appeal to Nigel Farage, the leader of the far right, getting closer to Musk because the millionaire and Trump advisor “is a phenomenon that cannot be ignored”.
Some Conservative Party MPs, who favor network regulation, have expressed support for Starmer, although Musk also has admirers among preservativesincluding the current leader of the opposition party, Kemi Badenoch, and her predecessor.
In November last year, when Sunak was still prime minister, Musk attended an artificial intelligence (AI) summit in London as a guest of honor.
In a shocking panel, Sunak played the role of an interviewer/fan of Musk, who had also ridiculed him just hours before for speaking out about AI regulation. In this “interview”, Musk began to make predictions about the evolution of generative artificial intelligence and declared that “in the future, no work will be necessary” because, according to him, this tool “will do everything » and there will be “a “high universal” income. No journalists were present to question him and ask him to explain what he was talking about.
Sunak, in any case, then continued to defend the regulation of networks like Musk’s and legal sanctions against those who incite violence and spread hoaxes, as provided for in the law he approved.
The exodus
In the UK, as in other countries, in the “for news” use case, X was more equal to other networks and 14% of users said they use it for news.
Since August, due to the increase in hoaxes during the Musk riots and attacks, important public voices have left the podium in the United Kingdom. The number of daily active users in the UK fell to 5.6 million in September, compared to eight million for the same period last year, according to the Financial Timeswhich cites data from Similaweb.
Furthermore, the pioneering departure of Tutor this month caused more users to stop tweeting and look for other alternatives, such as BlueSky.
The majority of BlueSky’s new users arrived after the November 5 election, won by Trump, and are mainly from the United States, but there have been notable arrivals from Brazil (following the temporary ban on United Kingdom. Among the latest arrivals is that of Larry, the Cat, the account paying tribute to the cat who prowls Downing Street and who specifies that he is still “on Twitter”.
