January 13, 2025 - 3:00pm

Half of Britons think that Elon Musk is a threat to British democracy, a new survey has claimed. According to polling from More in Common, the public is hesitant of the tech billionaire’s interventions into British politics, with only 21% saying he understands the concerns of ordinary UK voters.

The X owner has been a fixture in British news this month after defending far-Right activist Tommy Robinson as a “political prisoner” and calling for his release. Musk then called for a new Reform UK leader after Nigel Farage distanced himself from the comments. The two men are due to meet again at the President-elect’s inauguration next week, while Farage insists they are “still friends” and that Musk remains interested in donating to Reform.

But the More in Common figures suggest Musk’s reputation among the British electorate has taken a hit. While 81% believe the SpaceX and Tesla CEO can successfully run a business, only 26% think he would be a good adviser to the UK government and 68% believe he only cares about himself. Opinium polling for the Observer last weekend found that 53% think he is having a negative impact on British politics, while 47% considered his comments on the grooming gangs scandal “unhelpful”.

Britons don’t believe Elon Musk cares about justice for grooming gangs victims
What do you think is the main reason for Musk commenting on UK grooming gangs?

The online feud between Musk and Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been rumbling on since summer last year, when Labour was accused of mishandling the riots which followed the Southport stabbings in July. Having criticised the Government response on social media, Musk was consequently not invited to a UK investment summit. The Labour leader accused the tech mogul of spreading “lies and disinformation” on the grooming gangs scandal after the Tesla CEO said Starmer was “complicit in the rape of Britain” during his time as head of the Crown Prosecution Service.

It is not just Britain which is playing host to conversations about Musk's potential threat to democracy. In France, for example, President Emmanuel Macron said to French ambassadors: "Ten years ago, who could have imagined it if we had been told that the owner of one of the largest social networks [...] would support a new international reactionary movement and intervene directly in elections, including in Germany." But where Starmer clearly thinks his influence is corrosive, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni disagrees. The Italian Prime Minister was asked last week whether she thought the unelected billionaire posed problems for the democratic process. She responded that it was important to distinguish between “interference” and “expressing opinions”, before suggesting that George Soros was more of a threat to democracy than Musk.

Britons see Nigel Farage as more trustworthy than Elon Musk
For each of the following would you say they apply to (Elon Musk/Nigel Farage)?

When Donald Trump returns to the White House next week, Musk will co-head the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) alongside former Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy. It will be an advisory department, not an official arm of the federal government, aimed at dismantling bureaucracy.

Nick Clegg, former deputy prime minister and until recently head of global affairs at Meta, told the BBC last month that Musk could become a “political puppet master”. During the US election campaign, the world’s richest man was the biggest political donor to either main party, giving $277 million to Trump and other Republican candidates. On whether this made Musk a “threat to democracy”, Clegg said: “I think Elon Musk is obviously now playing an outsized role in both the election and now the formation of the new US administration.”


Max Mitchell is UnHerd’s Assistant Editor, Newsroom.

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