The Current - Why is Elon Musk meddling in world politics?

Episode Date: January 8, 2025

Elon Musk recently pushed the false claim that the U.K.’s prime minister is "deeply complicit in mass rapes," and suggested the country needed to be liberated by the U.S. That’s just one example of how the tech billionaire is using his position and influence to meddle in international politics — what’s his endgame?

Viking. Committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on a Viking longship with thoughtful service and cultural enrichment on board and on shore. Learn more at Viking.com. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is the current podcast. The world's richest man has flung himself into British politics and the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is not pleased. A line has been crossed.

I enjoy the cut and thrust of politics, the robust debate that we must have. But that's got to be based on facts and truth, not on lies, not on those who are so desperate for attention that they're prepared to debase themselves and their country. Keir Starmer was firing back at Elon Musk and right-wing politicians after Musk launched a poll on his social media platform X asking if, quote, America should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government. Keir Starmer is not the only politician in Europe frustrated by Elon Musk right now. Leaders in France, Germany, Spain and Norway have all expressed concerns about his meddling in elections,

spreading disinformation about immigration and an upcoming meeting with a far-right leader in Germany. And with Elon Musk poised to take a leading role in the Trump administration, pardon me, Ed Davey, the leader of the UK's Liberal Democratic Party, has called on the UK government to summon the US ambassador to answer for Elon Musk's comments. Tom Gordon is a member of the Lib Dems, he is also MP for Harrogate and Neresborough. Tom Gordon, good morning. Good morning. How do you feel about Elon Musk asking the world if America should overthrow your government? Well, we're just completely beyond the pale.

You know, this is something that's completely unprecedented. We've never seen a, an incoming US official suggesting that one of, you know, they should be overthrowing one of their closest allies. It's completely outrageous. And Ed Davey is absolutely right. We should be calling to summon the US ambassador

and, you know, to ask those questions and seek reassurances. It's an entirely dangerous and irresponsible rhetoric. And it's just further proof that the United Kingdom can't really rely on the Trump administration. And that's really quite worrying for a lot of people, not just in the UK, but around the globe. Is that what you believe, that the UK can't rely on the Trump administration? Well, it seemingly looks that way, doesn't it? And it's not just the UK that should be worried. We've seen comments from President Trump

about wanting to annex effectively Canada, Greenland, Panama, you name it. It's a really worrying time. What we need to know is if the administration in its entirety are gonna be a little bit more composed and a little bit more reliable than what we're seeing from the likes of Elon Musk and currently Donald Trump. Elon Musk and Keir Starmer's fight centers

around this grooming gangs scandal. And I want to just explain this for listeners here who may not understand this. This is a series of high profile cases where groups of men, mainly Pakistani British descent were convicted of sexually abusing and raping predominantly white young girls. Elon Musk has been posting about this scandal

with multiple inaccuracies, treating the scandal as if it were some sort of unknown story in the UK, despite the fact that it has been widely covered, was the subject of a national inquiry over a decade ago. The suggestion from Elon Musk was that Keir Stammer was in his words, complicit in mass rape and exchange for votes. And the suggestion again, was that Keir Starmer was, in his words, complicit in mass rape and exchange for votes.

And the suggestion again was that he failed to deal with this scandal when he was the head of the Crown Prosecution Service. Keir Starmer says a line has been crossed in all of that. What led, from your perspective, your prime minister to make those comments? Well, I completely, you know, far be it. My party is one of the opposition parties

here in the United Kingdom and I'm the last person to defend Labour or the, you know, Keir Starmer as the Labour Prime Minister. But it's completely unreasonable and completely ridiculous to have this idea pushed that Keir Starmer somehow is complicit in that scandal that we've seen. You know, what's really quite worrying is the way in which Elon Musk taking to X has whipped up hate and caused lots of misinformation, deliberately so, and that's causing quite serious consequences here. We've had people like Jess Phillips, one of the ministers in the Home Office, having death threats, having to have security beefed up. And this

issue is a really serious issue. And what we're losing throughout all of this is the voice of the victims, all because people like Elon Musk like the voice of themselves a little bit too much. Jess Phillips spoke with ITV earlier this week. Have a listen to what she said. When the world's richest man calls you a rape genocide apologist and an evil witch, how does that make you feel? I mean it's ridiculous isn't it? So the very premise of your question is that the things that he's saying are so ridiculous as to initially make me just go, what?

But then you wake up with the realisation that that's millions of people that he has said that to. And you feel immediately like this is going to turn my world upside down, and I have to try and limit for how long that is the case. You mentioned death threats. I mean, there are people who will remember the murder of Joe Cox, an MP who was murdered in 2016 by a man who had ties to the far right.

Is that what people are really concerned about here? That what is said online will have real world consequences? I think so. And that's what's really quite terrifying is when comments are made about politicians of all political persuasions online, we have security services effectively monitor and look for credible threats and that's really terrifying and that shows that something's gone wrong with our democracy when you can have people in other countries whipping up hate and the consequences of that, all MPs are now advised to make sure we walk to work a different way. We all have little security fobs and bleepers that will elicit

an emergency response. And we all have security screenings of our offices and homes. And you know, it didn't used to be that way. But what we've seen is people taking to social media platforms whipping up hate like Elon Musk, that's exacerbating all of that and giving people license on the back of fake news to go out there and target people in government and opposition parties in a way that is undermining our democracy. Why do you think Elon Musk is doing this? I genuinely don't know.

There are loads of different theories. I think this is just a man who has such a great sense of self-importance. He thinks that whatever stupid hour in the morning it is when he tweets that people should listen to him. But I've got news for Elon Musk, you know, we know from you gov polling in the UK, but nearly two thirds of the British public don't like him. He's unpopular with them. So the idea that he's speaking on behalf of the country is just utterly not true. And he needs to get that through his head. One of the theories is that, I mean, the UK has been really aggressive when it comes to

its approach to tech regulation. There's the online safety act, there's new antitrust laws, upcoming investigations as well, that that might be a factor in Elon Musk's behavior. What do you make of that? Well, it's interesting, isn't it? We saw actually just earlier this week that Metta have now announced that they will be changing the way in which they moderate their platform and mark sources of information as whether they're truthful or false. We've already seen the undoing of any moderation on X. There's all sorts of horrific content that you can now see online in a way that if you wind the clock back just a couple of years wasn't the common norm. On any given day, my ex-feed might have anything from

conspiracy theories around COVID vaccines or whether aliens are invading and any other number of things. And it's just become so harmful to society. I actually sit on the Science, Innovation, Technology and Select Committee in Parliament. And we've launched yesterday our first hearing about the role of AI algorithms and disinformation. And you've only got to look back to the summer when we had riots in the UK that were stemmed and propagated through social media and the actual impact and harm that caused. So it's quite clear to see that social media can hurt and can cause real life harm. Pete So just –

Jason And people need to, you know, everyone has the rights and freedom of speech. That doesn't give you a license and a lack of consequence from what you say if it causes real world harm. Just before I let you go, what should be done about this, aside from bringing the ambassador in, what else can you do? If this is, if you're this concerned about it,

what else can you do? Well, like I say, I think, you know, the government here in the UK are bringing forward even further measures to regulate AI and social media. I think that's a good step. I think that's something that we now need to take a lot more seriously than perhaps we did. But the problem that government always has

is it's always playing catch up when it comes to regulation of tech. So we need to make sure we've got a dedicated task force that's looking at this as it evolves rather than waiting until there are problems down the line. And when it comes to foreign policy aspects, I think the UK needs to really double down and commit to NATO. I think we need to show and lead on the world stage and make sure that we're a reliable

partner for countries in the Baltics who are worried about Russian aggression. We need to be a reliant partner for Ukraine, and we need to make sure that we reintegrate and try and rebuild our ties with the European Union after Brexit. Do you worry that in speaking, you yourself will become a target of Elon Musk? I don't really care. I'm probably too small in the grand scheme

of things for Elon Musk to care about, but it's just, you know, we had the chair of the Science, Innovation, Technology Select Committee write to Elon Musk saying he should come give evidence to our select committee on the role of X in those some of Ryan's certain AI and algorithms. And he sort of slapped that down and said, we'll all be summoned to the US. So, you know, with this sort of unhinged behavior, who knows where it's going to go.

Tom Gordon, good to speak with you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Tom Gordon, Liberal Democratic MP for Harrogate and Nearsborough. Viking. Committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on a Viking longship with thoughtful service and cultural enrichment on board and on shore. Learn more at Viking.com

Essential reading for everyone. Health for All is the instant number one national bestseller by Jane Philpott, former federal minister of health and Ontario lead on primary care. With over six million Canadians lacking basic health care, Philpott offers a prescription for a healthier society focusing on hope, belonging and purpose. Available in hardcover and audiobook. Narrated by Jane Philpott. Ali Breland is a writer for the Atlantic Magazine, covers tech and politics and far right movements. Ali, good morning to you.

Hey, good morning. Thank you for having me. Thanks for being here. You wrote a piece recently about Elon Musk's end game. You described him as a new kind of oligarch. What did you mean by that? Yeah, the idea that rich people are sort of intervening in politics is not particularly new to this moment, but Elon Musk is of this new ilk of person

who is much more interested in doing it in a public way as though there are no consequences because it seems as though for him there kind of are no consequences. He has sort of like carte blanche to influence the American political system. And then since I wrote that piece, he's trying to, you know,

try to influence the global political system in ways that like, you kind of see precedent in Rupert Murdoch, but like ultimately look fundamentally different and more brazen than kind of anything we've seen before, anything we've seen at least in a very long time. It's been said that when he bought Twitter, in some ways he was buying the power to exert influence.

Yeah, yeah, it seems like that was the case. He certainly like bought the ability to tweak the platform as he sees fit to sort of like boost ideological perspectives that often ended up being far right. He's seemingly using it to also conduct his own sort of private diplomacy in which he's trying to push around both members of the American government as well as members

of the British government and then as well as the German government. And then all the while being affectionate towards Maloney in Italy who he seems to like. What did you learn about what happened in the United States? We'll talk about the rest of the world in a moment. But when in the United States, there was this spending bill a few weeks ago,

and he tweeted out, or whatever you say, X, anybody who is in favor of this bill should be voted out in two years. Said this to his 211 million followers, which seemed to scare the pants off of some of those people because then they voted against the bill. What did that show you? It was really interesting.

Like I didn't, I hadn't seen anything like that before, but it showed that Elon has like in certain ways, like a tremendous amount of power. The president, Donald Trump, or excuse me, the president-elect Donald Trump had already signaled, excuse me, had already signaled that he was okay with the spending bill. It seemed like it was something that Congress

had already decided that they were all on track to. And then Elon Musk's single-handed intervention and like sticking his thumb in things kind of shifted the entire trajectory of that bill. At the same time though, like there are occasionally limits to his ability to influence things completely. And that seemed like a weird, interesting case where it was something that people cared about

but didn't have like passionate ideological positions on and that advantaged him. And I'm curious to see if like he runs up against that in the future, but it seems like he's kind of drunk off the power of that now, but things might end up differently. And he kind of operates in places where, as the prior guest just said,

people don't quite like him as much. So what is your sense as to why he is sticking his thumb or whatever digit in the politics of other countries? It's not just the US now, it's the UK in places like Germany where he said that only the AFD, the far right party, can save Germany. What is he trying to accomplish there? It's a couple different things that are all related. Some of it is just like a lot of it is just sincere ideological shift.

At some point he became fairly far right, or it was like revealed that he was fairly far right. He became public about this, and he has had this like sort of new found political awakening and is very committed to that ideology. He sees it as correct and he sees it as something that he should advance throughout the world. He should be boosting the sort of native, native assentment, this sort of national set of politics.

And then some of it appears to be motivated by personal grievance. A lot of it's just him responding to people who have sort of rejected him. In the United States, he wasn't always accepted quite as fondly, especially in recent years by liberals. That seems to be something that he's reacting against. Does this go back to the idea that he wasn't invited to the electric car summit that Joe Biden held? Yeah, I'm not sure how clear the direct line is,

but I think that that's probably like one of the things that happened and there's sort of rough analogs in Germany where it wasn't like he was like sort of not invited to anything, but like it was, regulators kind of went after him for a long time. I mean, there was this like really important club in Berlin that's very famous that he got reportedly rejected from. It doesn't have a political ideology, but presumably like him, you know, supporting the far right is like a troll to those kinds of people. And then the other bit of it too is that

if you read the Walter Isaacson book, and this is to like, psychologize him a little bit, the biography on Elon, his entire life is just him fixating on things and deciding he wants them. And then him being a boss in a position of power and having the ability to demand those things. And he did them in the development of cars, for example, things that were not practical, but he said, I want it and it had to be done.

Exactly, yeah, he wanted, for example, at one point he got really fixated on the idea that Tesla, certain models should have a door handle that automatically pops out as you get closer to the car, which is like a fine product, I guess. Engineers at the time were like, this is extremely difficult, please don't make us do this, and he was like, no, we have to the car, which is like a fine product, I guess. Engineers at the time were like, this is extremely difficult, please don't make us do this.

And he was like, no, we have to do it. I don't care how much work you have to do. And they worked for him, so they capitulated. And now Elon is in like, he's not the boss of the government, but he has something approaching that kind of status with his proximity to Donald Trump. How much influence do you think he actually has abroad?

Not just in the United States, but abroad? I'm curious, I'm actually watching for that because I don't know, I would assume it's less. He doesn't have the ability to spend as much money as he has on the American elections due to regulations in other countries. He doesn't have like a sort of inside track with a foreign leader in the way that he does with Trump,

even though he does with Trump, even though he seems to be, I guess on good terms with the Italian leader, Maloney, it's not the same. And so there's like going to be limits to it. But at the same time, his proximity to Trump gives him the ability to do these things because there is a fear of retaliation from European leaders or fear of retaliating against him from European leaders and a fear of retaliation from European leaders, or a fear of retaliating against him from European leaders and a fear of retaliation if they go too hard on us.

And so here in this country, we are now paying close attention because he is weighing in on Canadian politics. He called the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in his words, an insufferable tool. He has been amplifying conspiracy theories about Trudeau on X, saying that the Prime Minister's immigration policy has been outsourced to George Soros, for example.

Should Canadians be, be concerned that Elon Musk will intensify his attention on Canada? Yeah. I mean, I think that any country that, you know, comes across as like desk should be a little bit stressed out and should, uh, should be on edge, but at the same time. What should we be worried about?

So there's not a specific thing and I think there shouldn't be too much concern, but at the same time, this is someone who has tremendous access to the incoming President of the United States and even though there are limits as to what the President can do, this administration in particular wants to try to wield power in one of the most aggressive ways that the executive branch has like Possibly in the history United States at least according to what they aspire to but again at the same time Elon's like influence I think going forward in the future is not necessarily like a given He only has this influence in politics To the degree that he does for as long as he is

close to Trump and there are signs that there's already starting to like, the relationship is starting to fray a little bit. So this is really interesting because part of his, his power lies in proximity to Donald Trump. He's shacking up in this, this cabin, uh, on Mar-a-Lago, um, very close to Donald Trump. But people believe that could, that could change

once, you know, Donald Trump, but people believe that could change once Donald Trump moves into the White House. New York Times senior political correspondent and Trump biographer Maggie Haberman was recently on the podcast On with Kara Swisher and said, to your point, that cracks may be showing in that relationship. A long time Trump friend said something to me recently about how Trump is a one ring circus.

I'm not sure that Musk has figured that out yet. You know, Trump does complain a bit to people about how Musk is around a lot. Musk has been staying at this cottage at Mar-a-Lago. Rents typically for more than $2,000 a night. So he really parked himself in Trump's face. But what that looks like when Trump becomes president, I don't know.

Let's see what this looks like when the transition, which is currently based in Palm Beach, moves to DC for the inauguration. If there is a split between the two, what do you think that will look like? I think it looks like some kind of situation where Trump maybe tries to take advantage of the natural transition of his operations

from Mar-a-Lago to the White House. It's possible, I think Maggie Haberman speculated this, that he will not be given an office in the West Wing. The West Wing is not a place that you can simply buy a cabin or a villa at and hang out in the way that Mar-a-Lago has been. So it's possible that his access to Trump could just be limited by secret service and physical security and him not having complete access to Trump could just be limited by secret service and physical security and him not having complete access to see Trump.

Yeah, that's one very easy way. The other possibility is that it could become this very vocal, messy thing that we will all see on Twitter and in the news as they snipe at each other, which given the tendencies of these two people is not out of the realm of the possibility. I guess just in the last couple of minutes that we have, you have spent a lot of time watching and thinking

about what motivates Elon Musk. What is his end game, as you understand it? What is driving him in this? Is it money, is it ego, is it power, is it ideology? Why is he doing this? Yeah, it seems like, again, not to bealy-mouth, but it is like an interesting combination of all of these things He clearly like does desire money because that's how you Accrue more money than any other human being in the world, but that's not that's also not the only thing that's motivating him

There's not like a clear profit incentive for him to boost sort of like Aggressively far-right politics like he could be a sort of like aggressively far right politics. Like he could be a sort of like moderate right winger and achieve that much more effectively. Some of it just seems like this combination to what I said earlier of like fixating on things and then just being driven by animus and grievance, which you know, some scholars argue is like the crux of a lot of far-right ideology. But yeah, he feels insulted. He wants to resolve that.

He will never stop trying to resolve that. And so we're just caught in this cycle for as long as he has power and access to power, he will try to get revenge or try to, I guess, just become powerful and boost his ego and try to get back at people he perceives and boost his ego and try to get back at people he perceives have slighted him and people he perceives as like being, quote unquote, evil or bad for the war world. And if you are upset by that,

if you are one of those politicians who is alarmed by that, as you say, you're just caught in the wash? Yeah, I think we all are. And that's like what happens when you have someone with that much money and power is that eventually they start to accrue more power than the systems that we have or as much power and they can start to shape them in their own image.

Ali, thank you very much. Thank you. Ali Breland is a writer for Atlantic Magazine. He was in New York City. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.