Trump praises Musk as ‘smart guy’

It’s been an eventful week for US-UK relations. Twitter/X CEO Elon Musk has spent much of it berating the Labour government over Britain’s grooming gang scandal, calling first for Home Office minister Jess Phillips to take the place of far-right activist Tommy Robinson in prison before going on to say that Prime Minister Keir Starmer should be incarcerated. Crikey.

The tech billionaire’s attacks have been so relentless that even Sir Keir’s big healthcare speech on Monday was overshadowed by the media attention on Musk. Starmer has now hit back at the Tesla boss, remarking that: “Those that are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible, they are not interested in victims, they are interested in themselves.” Ouch. Not that it’s done much to deter Elon, who has continued his attacks on the Labour lot — and even suggested that Americans should “liberate” Brits from “their tyrannical government.” Good heavens…

But while the tech guru continued to vocalize his views on Starmer’s army online, his friend Donald Trump has been a little quieter. As Nick Watt noted on Newsnight, there has been “absolute horror at the highest levels of government” over the Twitter chief’s recent actions, with Labour officials reportedly keen to assess exactly how the president-elect feels about Musk’s online rants.

Well, the wait is now over. On Tuesday afternoon Trump addressed an audience after Congress certified his election win, and used some of his time to address the, er, frosty relations developing between the UK government and the to-be leader of his Department for Government Efficiency. Far from condemning the Twitter boss, Trump instead praised Elon as a “very smart guy” when quizzed on his provocative comments of late. The president-elect has not explicitly endorsed Musk’s exact remarks but it’s a move that Cockburn imagines will nonetheless dismay Starmer’s top team.

Not that things are thought to entirely rosy between the duo, with New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman suggesting on a recent podcast episode that the Republican is finding the billionaire businessman rather clingy — and getting quite annoyed at “President Musk” jibes online. Might there be trouble in paradise yet? Stay tuned…