Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Co-Chair of the newly introduced Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), arrives on Capitol Hill on December 05, 2024 in Washington, DC.
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Elon Musk has questioned whether or not the US ought to “liberate the folks of Britain from their tyrannical authorities” after hitting out at prime U.Ok. lawmakers.
In latest days, the tech billionaire and key adviser to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has taken to social media to air his grievances with the British authorities, leading to a disagreement between the Tesla boss and a U.Ok. authorities official.
In a sequence of posts on the X social media platform — which Musk owns — the tech tycoon hit out on the U.Ok.’s Labour authorities, criticizing its dealing with of historic baby abuse scandals.
Musk accused the U.Ok. Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips of being a “rape genocide apologist” on Friday, earlier than publishing a sequence of posts calling for Prime Minister Keir Starmer to be ousted and face jail time over how baby grooming gangs and different criminals who focused kids have been prosecuted.
His criticisms of the U.Ok. authorities over the weekend culminated in a ballot, the place he posed the idea of “liberating the folks of Britain” to the platform’s customers.
Musk’s feedback got here after Phillips rejected calls for a government-led inquiry into baby sexual exploitation within the city of Oldham.
Previous to embarking on a political profession, Starmer served because the U.Ok.’s Director of Public Prosecutions, working the Crown Prosecution Service throughout the nation’s baby rape gangs scandal. Phillips labored for Ladies’s Support, a charity that assists girls who’re victims of home violence, earlier than taking up a task in politics.
A spokesperson for Phillips was not instantly accessible for remark when contacted by CNBC.
‘A line has been crossed’
“On the query of Elon Musk … it’s a actually essential set of points. Baby sexual exploitation is completely sickening,” Starmer stated in response to a query throughout a Monday press convention. “[But] these which can be spreading lies and misinformation as far and as extensive as potential — they don’t seem to be keen on victims, they’re keen on themselves.”
Starmer on Monday defended his exercise as the previous Director of Public Prosecutions, noting that the Crown Prosecution Service had the best variety of baby sexual abuse instances being prosecuted on report, by the point he left workplace.
“Simply as I took on the felony justice system and the establishments once I was chief prosecutor, I am ready to name out this for what it’s,” he advised reporters.
“When the poison of the far proper results in severe threats to Jess Phillips and others, in my ebook a line has been crossed. I benefit from the minimize and thrust of politics, however that is acquired to be based mostly on info … not on those that are so determined for consideration that they are ready to debase themselves and their nation.”
Representatives for Musk weren’t instantly accessible for remark.
Confrontation
Starmer’s feedback got here after U.Ok. Well being Minister Wes Streeting slammed Musk’s assault on Phillips as a “disgraceful smear” over the weekend.
“Keir Starmer and Jess Phillips, who’ve each been on the tip of fully ill-judged criticism have carried out, of their skilled lives, greater than most individuals will ever do to lock up paedophiles, rapists, spouse beaters and each different scumbag in our society,” he stated in an interview with broadcasters the BBC.
Streeting challenged Musk to “roll his sleeves up and truly do one thing about tackling violence in opposition to girls and ladies,” citing the position of digital platforms “in preserving folks protected on-line.”
The skirmish with Musk — who has landed a job main a brand new workplace for the incoming Trump administration — takes place two weeks forward of the inauguration of the second presidency of Donald Trump, amid questions over the destiny of the “particular relationship” between the U.Ok. and the U.S.
Britain has already come underneath stress to construct bridges with the President-elect after a prime official’s previous jibes about Trump resurfaced. The EU has in the meantime been strengthening ties with the U.Ok. forward of Trump’s return to the White Home, with a view to guard each events in opposition to potential U.S. commerce tariffs.
