"When the far-right activist Tommy Robinson emerged from a London courtroom this week after a judge cleared him of a terrorism charge, he gave thanks to the man he said had bankrolled his defense. Elon Musk, I'm forever grateful. If you didn't step in and fund my legal fight I'd probably be in jail, Robinson said. Thank you, Elon."
"In the period immediately after Musk's messy departure from the White House, the Tesla CEO repeatedly suggested that he was done with politics. Investors who had pushed him to refocus on his businesses were delighted. Tesla's stock rose. The months since, however, have proved that Musk has failed to abandon his political preoccupations. He has done the opposite, veering further into election conspiracies and extreme anti-immigration views."
"Musk's political endeavors since leaving the Trump administration have included leveraging his social media platform as a pulpit to influence New York City's mayoral race and creating an AI-generated, rightwing knockoff of Wikipedia. In interviews, he has said there is a homeless industrial complex of nonprofits ruining California and complained that it should be okay to have white pride. On X, he proclaimed that the UK would fall into civil war and western civilization would collapse."
Tommy Robinson publicly thanked Elon Musk for funding his legal defense after a judge cleared him of a terrorism charge. After leaving the White House, Musk suggested he would step back from politics, which initially pleased investors and boosted Tesla's stock. Musk instead intensified political activity, embracing election conspiracies, extreme anti-immigration rhetoric and provocative social media interventions. He used his platforms to influence elections, create an AI-generated rightwing encyclopedia, and make inflammatory claims about immigrants, homelessness and western civilization. A Yale study estimated that Musk's rhetoric and far-right affiliations cost Tesla roughly one million vehicle sales between 2022 and April 2025, and consumer loyalty declined.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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