Elon Musk’s curious fixation with Britain
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy7kpvndyyxo
Posted by the-evil-bee
Elon Musk’s curious fixation with Britain
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy7kpvndyyxo
Posted by the-evil-bee
41 Comments
I have a theory on this, and his fixation is two fold.
1. As he grew up in S.Africa, he’s feeling a touch of colonial nostalgia for the mighty British Empire.
2. He’s an engineer and up until transistors emerged, Britain was undoubtedly top dog in engineering. It’s a fact that Brittons created an unhealthy share of the engineering that underpins modern world and even after micro electronics took over as the critical engineering type for ongoing development, did a reasonable job of holding on, despite the relatively small population.
So he’s basically wistful for an early 20th century Britain where mega industrialists invented and ruled the world and that fits his worldview.
He will buy the monarchy when he buys the government.
He must see Starmer as a threat. The right wing press here certainly do.
He typically lashes out at people who either embarrass him or he considers a threat. Britain is probably both in his eyes.
I think the answer is a rather simple, he gained control in the US and now wants to continue expanding
And the UK is the next best option due to all of the political crossover that already existed with the far right here.
It worked in the US with Trump and now he sees Farage as an easy copy to work with here
He’s obsessed with all white English speaking places, he’ll be after Australia once he buys out our government. He’s jyst an apartheid baby trying to bring back white supremacy
Fascism is resurgent across much of Europe, but we’re perhaps the most reluctant
This one isn’t hard. He gets fixated on things, he’s currently fixated on the decline/fall of the west. He’s also English speaking, so the two primary candidates for reversing that decline are the USA and the UK.
He wants to get the Cybertruck authorised for British roads
Would this arsewipe bugger off already, he’s already helped ruin america, I don’t want him ruining things MORE over here.
I honestly just think it’s ’right, I’ve pretty much bought the USA, where can I buy next?’, ie, showering the current leader or soon to be leader/s in so much cash they basically control them
Musk is a massive narcissist who believes his genius can save the world.
He’ll read some piece of news, and think it’s his god-given right to swoop in, take control and be the saviour.
If anyone gets in his way, attempts to thwart his efforts, or even so much as think about opposing him, then they’re the enemy, and must be crushed.
Britain has been heavily involved in (and sometimes even at the centre of some of) a number of recent and high-profile embarrassments for Musk, where his “help” was refused, or even mocked.
Chief among these is that Thai cave-diving rescue from a few years back.
Where Musk pitched his submersible submarine thing to rescue those trapped.
There was also a British-hosted high-profile AI conference that Musk just assumed he’d be invited to and be the centre of.
We didn’t invite him.
Britain is where Vernon Unsworth (an expert cave diver who helped recruit the rescuers of a Thailand boy’s football team) is from, who you’ll recall Elon Musk referred to as “pedo guy”. As a result there was a court case in the US where Unsworth sued for damages, which Musk won, and declared that as a result “my faith in humanity is restored.”
We should deal with Musk as we find him. That is, he is rich, has been indulged all his life, has no inhibitions and therefore little or no empathy. We have to deal with him in the same way as any other spoilt child by taking away his toys and denying him access to people and places. We must make clear in no uncertain terms what our rules are and demonstrating them to him, if necessary via denial of visas, prosecution where warranted. Also if Starmer is prepared to face unpopularity, as appears to be the case, change the law to deal with threats of big outside money from wherever it comes including state actors. All this may not necessarily affect him personally but at least we can see what he (and Farage) is up to.
Ban foreign donations and tighten the standards of social media. End gifts for politicians and tackle the spread of misinformation.
Tackling populist, corrupt liars like Farage and Musk means tackling the international support they all have for each other. I feel no different about the other side doing the same thing. Stop allowing foreign entities to influence national politics so overwhelmingly. This is just inviting trouble.
His fixation really is he just wants to ensure access to British markets for himself.
Hes trying to see how much influence he can have globally.
Same with germany now endorsing the nazi party.
Hopefully Trump sees that the two can only coexist for so long and puts an end to him. Thankfully Trump doesn’t care about European control, musk does
I don’t think it’s that complicated. Musk is extremely online and far-right grifters in the UK exist in the same social media ecosystem as the US ones.
It’s much simpler than people are saying, we don’t like him because we aren’t idiots. He doesn’t like that we don’t like him.
Scariest part for me is he’s still very young, we could see him around for another 40 years buying elections and politicians
There’s a good documentary called “Johnny English Strikes Again” that goes into more detail about how this plays out.
It’s probably partly to do with the UK having a similar hellscape of a media landscape thanks to Mr Murdoch and fourteen years of Tory rule. Culture wars dominate the discourse, so it’s easier for populists to manipulate the average person by blaming ‘others’.
I wish we’d stop treating the super-rich as aspirational, and start treating them as the mentally-ill wealth hoarders that they are.
Follow the money.
Musk had to borrow $44bn from all sorts of shady people to buy Twitter – and he’s promptly driven away users and advertisers alike.
Yet he hasn’t woken up with a horses head in his bed.
Now, call me a conspiracy theorist if you like, but I don’t think the funding for Twitter was predicated around Elon turning the business around. I think it was predicated on the idea of “This gives us control over a platform that regularly shapes political discourse in the West – meaning we can shape it to our own liking”.
Okay, I have no evidence for this. But it explains pretty much everything, and unlike most conspiracies it doesn’t require a lot of far-fetched things to happen for it to be accurate.
Does he have a fixation with Britain, or with pushing hard right politics everywhere?
We have a pretty skilled workforce that pays a lot less when compared to similar 1st world countries. It just makes sense to look to the UK for cheap labour
It’s not that deep, he’s a billionaire narcissist who thinks everything should belong to him.
He realised how dumb the general populace is after Brexit and knows he can profit from the mess that is this country.
It’s because they didn’t invite him to that AI conference. That’s literally the reason. He can’t let it go.
Not sure we are unique honestly, he’s interfering everywhere. He’s just endorsed the AfD in Germany.
[removed]
Good lord, please stop giving this gobshite oxygen.
Does he have no interest in South Africa at all? I genuinely don’t think I’ve heard him talk about the region or any of the politics
It’s because he sees us as a fragile and fractured society that can be manipulated.
Or it could just be that Britain is fast becoming a dystopian nightmare.
It’s quite simple, we are an English speaking country in Europe and he’s an insecure megalomaniac that needs to be the main character at all times and sees Britain as a useful tool for further advancement of his own self-interest and power.
Plus he loves de-regulation so his businesses can get away with all sorts of financial, environmental and employment shenanigans, likely is pissed off he can’t get his claws fully into Britain previously because of that.
Like Farage, Candy, Tice they don’t really give a shit about the people, it’s all a vehicle to further self-enrichment
The conservative/right wing has taken a beating in this country but an association with Musk is how you truly sink them for another generation or two
Elon Musk is a pathetic little weasel with a huge ego
Britain invented the modern world.
Musk appreciates that.
Starmer ignored him and he didn’t get an invite to that tech conference after Sunak was effectively sucking his toes a couple of months before. He is a big baby.
People here are easily manipulate by the tabloids, due to the misuse of the free press argument. Brexit. He bought twitter to use that argument and manipulate by misinformation.