Elon Musk (Byline Times)
Co-published with Byline Times:
Having told the Venice Carnival of his latest technological venture to save the world, a media tycoon in his 50s embarrasses the British and Italian Governments, escaping their attempt to arrest him for illegal trade in fuel for nuclear weapons.
He celebrates his victory by telling a guest, “A piece of advice, Mr. Bond. Don’t screw with a man who buys ink by the ton. It’s deadlier than uranium.”
Fast forward 27 years, replace “ink by the ton” with “X”, and Elliot Carver — Jonathan Pryce’s theatrical villain in Tomorrow Never Dies — is now Elon Musk.
Carver’s quest for global domination rested on starting a war between the UK and China.
Musk’s? It begins with his attempts to undermine and even topple governments, feeding racial, ethnic, and class tensions to erode and break societies.
To achieve that, no lie is too big. No political party is too deviant to be supported and, if it does not follow Musk’s agenda, jettisoned. And no misogynist, hard-right, or even neo-Nazi actor, from Germany’s AfD to the UK’s Tommy Robinson and Andrew Tate, is beyond embrace.
Toppling the UK Government
Not content with being an unelected co-President-elect alongside Trump, Musk has sought pretexts to assail governments from Canada to Germany to the UK.
On New Year’s Day, Musk noticed a tweet by Jonatan Pallesen, an advocate of “less mass immigration, more births”, about “Pakistani child-rape gangs”. The tycoon replied, “Who in the government and judiciary allowed this to happen and which of the legacy media covered it up?”
Mario Nawfal, the host of “The Largest Show on X” and boasting 1.8 million followers, jumped in with a declaration by then-UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman from April 2023:
Some of these gangs have been overwhelmingly British-Pakistani males. Some areas absolutely failed to take action because of cultural sensitivities — not wanting to come across as racist.
Braverman’s statement was deceptive. A 2020 Home Office report found that group-based sex offenders are “most commonly white”.
Perhaps more importantly, Braverman was trying to divert pressure on the Conservative Government to take action over sexual abuse of juvenile girls. While there had been historic police failures in investigation of the “grooming gangs”, there had been a series of steps — including by Keir Starmer, then Director of Public Prosecutions at the Crown Prosecution Service — and national and local inquiries to rectify the failure to listen to and protect victims.
This culminated in the 2022 Jay Inquiry, a national examination which produced 20 recommendations, such as mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse, financial compensation for victims, creation of a Child Protection Authority, a single set of core data, and extension of the list of people barred from working with children.
Up to its departure in May 2024, the Sunak Government took no significant action. As Professor Alexis Jay, the head of the inquiry, said on Monday, “Our mission is not to call for new inquiries but to advocate for the full implementation of IICSA’s recommendations.”
But Musk was either ignorant of this, did not care, or both as he reposted and commented on scores of tweets — many of them filled with disinformation — throughout the day. Now he had a pretext for his mission to take down the Government.
Responding to “Basil the Great”, he posted, “Vote Reform, it’s the only hope.” He blustered that Labour MP Naz Shah “should be in prison”. He said of the supposed officials involved in a “cover-up”, “Hang them for treason.”
Then he aimed at Jess Phillips, the Labour minister for safeguarding women, “She deserves to be in prison.”
The alleged “crime” of Phillips, a staunch defender of the rights and safety of women and girls throughout her career, was her response to members of Oldham council, who had asked for another national inquiry.
Phillips noted that the findings and recommendations of the Jay Inquiry was still prevalent. However, if the council members wanted another inquiry, they could do so at the local level.
GB News, the outlet of the Musk-backed Reform Party, distorted the response, “Labour REJECTS Oldham’s call for Government inquiry into grooming gangs scandal”, alongside a photo of Phillips. Its post was seen by Musk via the disgraced former UK Prime Minister, Liz Truss, who added the false and potentially libelous claim that Phillips was “the same Home Office Minister who excused masked Islamist thugs”.
Eighteen minutes later, commenting on a post by “Inevitable West”, Musk repeated, “Prison for Phillips now!”
The following day, the tycoon expanded his mission, misspelling the name of the Prime Minister.
Who is the boss of Jess Phillips right now? Keir Stamer.
The real reason she’s refusing to investigate the rape gangs is that it would obviously lead to the blaming of Keir Stamer (head of the CPS at the time).
Once again, the attack was based on disinformation. Starmer became head of the CPS after the police failures over the grooming gangs, and initiated a series of measures to correct the malpractice. Prosecution and conviction rates of rapists sharply increased during his four years as Director of Public Prosecutions.
But for GB News and the Reform Party, Musk’s falsehoods were a god-send. Ignoring facts and the Jay Inquiry, the outlet featured diatribes about “multi-culturalism”, race and ethnicity, and the Labour Party. Elon Musk’s father Errol was brought in to proclaim that Starmer would be “gone” by February.
Fearing a surge in support for Reform, the Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch and Shadow Home Minister Chris Philp — not mentioning that the Sunak Government had also turned down the Oldham request for a national enquiry — now said that this was a necessity “to get to the truth”.
Talk TV, also supportive of Reform, echoed Musk’s proclamations. The Telegraph stripped out all context from its coverage, “Labour Blocks Grooming Gangs Inquiry”.
Musk pressed his advantage, “Jess Philips is a rape genocide apologist….What an evil human.” He called on King Charles III to prorogue Parliament and force elections: “Starmer must go and he must face charges for his complicity in the worst mass crime in the history of Britain.”
Embracing Tommy Robinson, Breaking Up With Nigel Farage
Musk had another quest on this New Year’s Day: exalt Tommy Robinson, the far-right activist accused of inciting racial and religious hatred and given an 18-month prison sentence over his libel of a 15-year-old Syrian refugee.
Told by “Inevitable West” that “Tommy Robinson was smeared as a ‘far-right racist’ for exposing the mass betrayal of English girls by the state”, Musk posted:
Why is Tommy Robinson in a solitary confinement prison for telling the truth?
He should be freed and those who covered up this travesty should take his place in that cell.
Musk circulated disinformation from Robinson’s X account about Labour and Jess Phillips with the comment, “This is unconscionable”. He promoted Robinson’s “documentary” — the video in which the far-right activist repeated his defamation of the Syrian teenager — with a “Worth Watching”.
On January 2, he posted at least twice, “Free Tommy Robinson!”, retweeting others — like General Michael Flynn, Donald Trump’s former National Security Advisor — who said Robinson was a “political prisoner”.
The Reform Party suddenly had a problem. It was easy politics to ride Musk’s wave on grooming gangs. It was far more difficult to support Robinson, with his criminal record and extremism beyond the party’s most provocative statements.
On January 3, Reform MP Lee Anderson told GB News, “I would not welcome Tommy Robinson into Reform UK.” Farage followed up, “We are a political party aiming to win the next general election, Tommy Robinson is not what we need.”
Musk’s father Errol had fired a warning shot earlier in the day, telling GB News, “I look at Nigel Farage, he doesn’t particularly look like a strong man to me.”
But on January 4, Farage said in a GB News interview that he would “at the [Trump] inauguration, explain to [Musk] that perhaps things aren’t quite as they look”, noting that Robinson was in prison for contempt of court rather than exposing grooming gangs.
Musk responded, “I know he’s in prison for contempt of court ffs, but there is NO justification for such a long prison sentence or for solitary confinement!”
The next day, Musk dropped the hammer: “The Reform Party needs a new leader. Farage doesn’t have what it takes.”
Two hours later, he was asked by “God Save Great Britain” if Reform MP Rupert Lowe should be the party leader.
Lowe had proclaimed, “If the Government won’t hold a proper inquiry, we will do it ourselves.” He said, “Elon Musk has done more for these abused British girls in a few days than almost any British politician has in decades.”
So Musk answered, “I have not met Rupert Lowe, but his statements online that I have read so far make a lot of sense.”
Farewell, Mr. Bond
Farage is sticking to his line that “Tommy Robinson is not right for Reform”. Musk is still jabbing at him — circulating a post that declares Farage “probably has Stockholm Syndrome” about Islam, the tycoon comments, “Interesting perspective.”
GB News is scrambling. Most of its hosts and talking heads back Farage, but it also features Ben Habib — removed from the Reform Party leadership by Farage — backing Musk’s portrayal of Tommy Robinson as a “political prisoner”.
Jess Phillips has finally responded to Musk’s “ridiculous” claims: “You know, Elon Musk is going to [do] Elon Musk. I’ve got bigger and more important things to be thinking about.”
The junior minister says she has “more important things to be thinking about”, and Musk should “crack on with this ‘getting to Mars’ business”.
If the victims come forward to me in this victims panel and they say, ‘Actually, we think there needs to be a national inquiry into this’, I’ll listen to them.”
And Musk’s broader mission to remove the UK Government continues. “He believes Western civilization is under threat,” an associate says.
“Starmer is complicit in the crimes,” Musk posts, agreeing “100%” with the statement that “Keir Starmer belongs in prison along with all the child rapists he let off the hook”. He proclaims that former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown “sold those little girls for votes”.
He posts a “poll” over his quest: “America should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government.” He wins the vote by 58% to 42%.
And he promises more to come beyond Britain. Responding to a declaration by “Rob2628” that “Germany is next!”, he replies, “Definitiv!”
In 1997, Elliot Carver told James Bond, “You see, you and I are both men of action. But your era is passing. Words are the new weapons; satellites the new artillery.”
Of course, Carver is vanquished in the final scene. However, Tomorrow Never Dies, does it?
In 2025, words are the weapons of the man whose satellites are his artillery. And this time, the personal quest to topple governments and upend societies is not a Hollywood script.
