He is widely loathed.
The only British political movement to be willing to take his money is the extremist, but also marginal, EDL (the organisation lead by Tommy Robinson).
He offered a huge donation to Reform but this was turned down because he made it a condition of the donation that Tommy Robinson was allowed to join Reform. This leaves him with no party capable of winning even a single seat in parliament being willing to take his money.
I do not doubt that Musk is trying to use X to influence British politics. I do doubt he is having much success.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/elon-musk-nig...
Plus who in UK would buy a Tesla now? Other than because it was discounted.
On the other hand, people are happily buying Chinese cars without caring about the ethics and politics of China or the companies they buy from, which are even worse.
Their taxes go to the Chinese government, buying from them strengthens the Chinese economy (and therefore the government), buying centrally controlled technology from China strengthens China strategically (in the same way buying US cloud services strengthens the US) , Chinese companies are far more under the control of the state, and they have their own ethical problems, such as near slavery: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/what-happens-next-wor...
> If I buy a BYD car, my money is not going directly into the pockets of white supremacists
If you buy a Tesla only some of what you pay is profit. Musk owns 16% of the shares so is entitled to 16% of the profits and his pay as CEO, and the the extremists will get whatever proportion of that he chooses to give them
It is likely to be a tiny proportion of the cost of a car, and certainly far less than the benefit the Chinese government gets from the purchase of a BYD.
> in the UK and Germany.
That would be AfD in Germany. I did not think he had actually donated all that much?
In the UK has he found anyone willing to take his money? Reform turned him down because he made the donation on their letting Tommy Robinson join. That essentially leaves him with the Tommy Robinson and the EDL, Rupert Lowe (an independent MP since he got kicked out of Reform) and a few individuals and even smaller organisations than the EDL (like whatever Ben Habib's new party is called) who might take his money.
The problem is, neither does Musk. We know now that the above talking points of the U.S. Republicans were just election rhetoric. What we got is an oligarchy that takes foreign bribes and gives government money to friends and family.
Musk just got his NASA candidate Isaacman nominated. Isaacman of course is a billionaire, just like Trump, Musk, Lutnick, Ramaswamy, Kushner, Witkoff and others. Isaacman will direct state money towards SpaxeX just like Kushner and Witkoff will benefit from their Gaza "master plan" (wording accidentally leaked by Witkoff in an interview to the dismay of Kushner).
The problem that Labour parties in the EU have sold out since Blair/Schroeder cannot be fixed easily. Musk however is not the solution.
I'm not really worried for my own country though. Nobody here ever pointed to the US and said "I want that".
sippeangelo•3mo ago