Farage hails Musk as ‘hero’ a month on from rift
Elon Musk has previously said Nigel Farage ‘doesn’t have what it takes’ to lead his party to victory.
Nigel Farage praised Elon Musk as a “hero” in a speech at a right-wing conference in America a month after the billionaire suggested he should stand down as leader of Reform UK.
Addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference (Cpac) in Washington on Thursday evening, Mr Farage said: “I think he is a hero, because if you remember 2020, in November, you couldn’t say anything about the conduct of the election in this country.
“You then couldn’t say anything about vaccines or about lockdowns without social media closing you down.
“And then along came the hero of free speech, Elon Musk.”
The months following November 2020 saw repeated false claims on social media and elsewhere that Donald Trump had won the US presidential election.
The Reform leader went on to praise Mr Musk’s work at the head of the “Department for Government Efficiency” (Doge), which has slashed US government projects over the past month in ways that have been challenged in the courts.
He said: “I believe that the talents of the world’s most successful businessman, going into this amazing Doge project, I wish him all the luck in the world and god speed, I really, really do.”
Mr Musk himself appeared on the Cpac stage shortly after Mr Farage, but made no mention of the Reform leader.
Mr Farage’s praise of the Tesla and SpaceX owner follows an apparent rift between the two men in January, when Mr Musk said he “doesn’t have what it takes” to lead his party to victory.
The dispute centred on Mr Musk’s support for jailed far-right activist Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – something Mr Farage has consistently refused to do.
Until that point, Mr Musk appeared to have supported Mr Farage, meeting him and Reform’s treasurer Nick Candy in America, while he had been rumoured to be considering a significant donation to the party.
But while Mr Farage later insisted that he was “on good terms” with Mr Musk, the billionaire also seemed to suggest Reform MP Rupert Lowe should take over as party leader.
His brief remarks focused heavily on free speech, as he claimed Britain was a place where “you can’t say anything or you might get put in prison”.
He also praised Donald Trump, calling him “simply the bravest man I know”.
But he made no mention of Ukraine or Mr Trump’s claim that president Volodymyr Zelensky was a “dictator”, despite earlier in the day expressing some disagreement with the term.
He told GB News Mr Zelensky was “not a dictator”, but added it was “only right and proper that Ukrainians have a timeline for elections”.
