Elon Musk to assist Reform overtake Tory Party ‘inside three months’

Elon Musk is said to be among a “number of billionaires” considering a donation to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, the party’s treasurer has said.

Nick Candy said the party would cause “political disruption like we have never seen before” and that Reform would have more members than the Conservative party within three months. Earlier this month Reform leader Mr Farage and Mr Candy met Mr Musk at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, fuelling speculation about a substantial donation.

And in an interview with the Financial Times on Sunday night, Mr Candy said would “raise more money than any other political party”. Having arranged the meeting between Mr Musk and Mr Farage, the treasurer said Mr Musk – who is the boss of Tesla and Twitter/X – would “be the first of many wealthy donors legally allowed to donate”.

He continued: “We have a number of billionaires prepared to donate to the party, not just Elon. The Reform party is the disrupter – this is the seed round, the series A. This will be political disruption like we have never seen before.”

Mr Candy, a billionaire property tycoon who is married to actress and pop star Holly Valance, was unveiled as Reform’s new finance boss earlier this month. He promised a “seven-figure sum” for Reform, said the party had “more Conservative values in its little finger than the Conservative party”.

Foreign donations to UK-based political parties is already banned. However, parties can accept donations from a number of sources including individuals on the UK electoral register or a UK-registered company. It means Mr Musk could donate through any of his UK-based businesses, such as the UK arm of Twitter.

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 head of the Electoral Commission, Vijay Rangarajan, has called for the rules to be strengthened to “protect the electoral system from foreign interference”. Labour’s election manifesto committed to strengthening the rules around donations to political parties. But Commons Leader Lucy Powell on Sunday admitted there were no immediate plans to tighten rules on foreign donations.

She said: “We’ve no immediate plans to do that, but we do have a manifesto commitment to look more broadly at our elections regime in this country, from things like votes at 16, which we’re committed to. But also to make sure that our electoral system has got that integrity and is robust from many of the new issues that face undermining our democracy and our elections.”

Meanwhile Kemi Badenoch said that while Mr Farage had raised the prospect of a huge donation, “Mr Farage says a whole load of things”. She added: “I don’t say things unless they are true”. Speaking to the BBC, Ms Badenoch added Andrea Jenkyns, the former Tory minister who defected to Reform, does not “like me” but “I don’t really care”. Asked about defections to Reform from the Conservatives, she said: “With some of those people – Andrea Jenkyns, for example, it’s very personal – don’t like me.”