Why does Elon Musk preserve interfering in British politics – and may he give Reform £80m?

Elon Musk is said to be in talks with Nigel Farage to hand tens of millions of pounds to Reform UK, bankrolling the hard-right party with an unprecedented injection of foreign cash.

Mr Farage described his hour-long meeting with Mr Musk at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort on Monday as “great” and “historic”, saying he and party treasurer Nick Candy had “learned a great deal about the Trump ground game”.

Mr Farage also met vice president-elect JD Vance during the trip.

But why exactly is Elon Musk, one of the richest and most influential people on the planet so interested in British politics – much less a relatively niche anti-immigration party with barely enough MPs to fill a Ford Focus?

Here’s how we got to where we are.

Who is Elon Musk and how rich is he?

Elon Musk, 53, is an erratic billionaire tech entrepreneur, who owns the SpaceX rocket company, Tesla cars, and most recently snapped up Twitter.

After buying Twitter and laying off a huge number of its staff, he changed it’s name to X. But most people still call it Twitter.

He’s thrice divorced – twice from actor Talulah Riley – has at least 11 children and is worth an estimated $475 billion.

It was reportedly Ms Riley’s idea for him to buy Twitter, so he could end the “woke-ness”.

He’s also been romantically linked to Amber Heard and was in a longer relationship with Canadian singer Grimes.

He first came to the attention of most people when he got into an almighty row with a British caver who was helping to free 12 boys trapped in a Thai cave in 2018.

During an argument which nobody can really remember the details of, Mr Musk referred to Vernon Unsworth as “pedo guy”, prompting Mr Unsworth to sue him for £145 million for defamation.

The judge ruled in favour of Mr Musk, accepting his claim that the phrase is common in South Africa, where he grew up.

Since then, he’s made similarly rash, provocative and edgy interventions in the news and politics on both sides of the pond – culminating in his support for Donald Trump in his successful 2024 election campaign.

Why is he suddenly interested in UK politics?

Elon Musk’s vocal interventions in British politics began shortly after the general election in July – most notably sliding into the right wing narrative that violent thugs who set fire to hotels were somehow being treated unfairly, due to “two tier policing”.

Since then he’s made repeated false claims about the UK releasing “convicted paedophiles to imprison people for social media posts”. Sex offenders were excluded from the early release scheme.

There are many theories about the origin of Mr Musk’s beef with Keir Starmer – but most believe it has something to do with the billionaire’s earlier beef with a -adjacent campaign group called the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).

Mr Musk accused CCDH of violating laws against foreign interference in US elections – and tried unsuccessfully to sue them.

So when you combine cosying up with Trump and having grievances with Keir Starmer, it’s just a hop, skip and a jump to giving Nigel Farage £80 million.

Is he really going to give Reform £80 million? Can he do that?

We should start by saying you should take everything Elon Musk says with a pinch of salt. He says and does things to wind people up, like a real-life mid-level internet troll with unlimited resources.

That said, Nigel Farage claims to have held “negotiations” with Mr Musk, alongside turncoat ex-Tory treasurer Nick Candy – and says they “did talk about money”.

The figure of £80 million has been floated around – and would be even more than Mr Musk gave Donald Trump to bankroll his election campaign.

But if he were minded to mount such an unprecedented attempt to influence British elections from overseas, there’s nothing anyone could really do to stop him.

Is anyone going to do anything to stop it?

The current rules state only UK citizens – or companies registered in the UK – can give cash to political parties. That means he’d either have to become a British citizen – which it’s been suggested he could because he apparently has a British grandmother – or, more straightforwardly, he could make the donation through the UK arm of Twitter. Which is still, at the time of writing, called ‘Twitter UK Ltd’.

There’s no set limit on the level of donations that can be funnelled through UK companies from overseas.

The current rules just say that the original source of the funds must be declared publicly if they’re over a certain threshold. The rules ensure transparency, but don’t actually prevent overseas donations.

The government say they want to revisit the laws surrounding donations – but haven’t confirmed a timescale, and wont say what kind of changes they’d be looking to make.