How Elon Musk Helped Fuel the U.K.’s Far-Right Riots

On July 29, 2024, a man stabbed several people at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in the seaside town of Southport in northern England, killing three young children. As their deaths shocked the nation, rumors about the attacker’s identity quickly spread online. Far-right provocateurs like Andrew Tate — who was indicted in 2023 on charges (that he denies) of rape and human trafficking in Romania, and is currently under house arrest over a second investigation — blamed an undocumented immigrant for the attacks. Actor Laurence Fox promoted speculation that the suspect was Muslim: “We need to permanently remove Islam from Great Britain,” he posted to his half a million followers on X, formerly Twitter. 

Also significant was Tommy Robinson — real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon — founder of the now-defunct far-right group English Defence League. Robinson took to X to claim the authorities were “managing” the public response to the stabbings, adding that “their goal is to manipulate us!” In another post, he linked the attack to Islam.

By the evening of July 30, a crowd had gathered outside a mosque in Southport. Bricks and rocks were launched at the mosque, and the so-called protest quickly turned into a riot. A police van was torched, and dozens of officers were injured. Reports claimed that former English Defence League members had traveled in from across the country to take part. 

Over the following days, riots spread to cities around the country. Mobs broke windows and tried to set fire to hotels housing asylum seekers, and immigration advice centers were also targeted. On Aug. 1, in an effort to stem the tide of disinformation and violence, judges lifted reporting restrictions on the suspect’s identity, previously imposed because he was a minor. He turned out to be a 17-year-old British citizen born in Cardiff. His parents were from Rwanda and had a Christian background, not Muslim. 

To the mobs, it didn’t matter. Violence continued on the U.K.’s streets. It became the worst far-right unrest the country has seen for decades. 
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Throughout, the main forum where right-wing pundits and influencers stoked public anger was X. But a key driver of the unrest was the platform’s owner himself, Elon Musk. He would link the riots to mass immigration, at one point posting that “civil war” in the U.K. was inevitable. He trolled the newly elected British prime minister, Keir Starmer — whose Labour Party won power in July after 14 years of Conservative rule — for supposedly being biased against right-wing “protesters.” After Nigel Farage, the leader of radical-right party Reform U.K. and Trump ally, posted on X that, “Keir Starmer poses the biggest threat to free speech we’ve seen in our history,” Musk replied: “True.” 

Anything Musk even slightly interacted with during the days of violence received a huge boost, due to the way he has reportedly tinkered with X’s algorithm and thanks to his 200 million followers, the largest following on X. “He’s the curator-in-chief — he’s the man with the Midas touch,” says Marc Owen Jones, an expert on far-right disinformation and associate professor at Northwestern University in Qatar. “He boosted accounts that were contributing to the narratives of disinformation and anti-Muslim hate speech that were fueling these riots.”

It was not lost on many observers that the riots came just a few weeks into Labour’s new government. As the U.S. presidential election approaches, a similar upheaval could be in store for America. Ahead of the vote, Musk is not only posting regularly about election fraud and how Kamala Harris would enfranchise millions of undocumented migrants to help Democrats fix all future elections, he is also basically a member of the Trump campaign team — and effectively running the former president’s field program. His Super PAC has been offering cash to supporters who identify registered voters to sign a petition. According to experts, if Trump wins, Musk is likely to take the credit, pointing to his relentless support via X and his checkbook. Trump has also pledged to give him a top role in his administration. But if Harris wins the election as Labour did in the U.K., there is the very real possibility that Musk could help stoke far-right unrest on American streets — or another insurrection. 
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Musk’s interventions in Britain’s summer unrest did not come from nowhere. Through his warping and wilding of X, he has spent the past two years helping create the ideal conditions for far-right violence in the U.K. — and beyond. 

Musk did not respond to Rolling Stone’s requests for comment.

Creating the conditions

As soon as he bought the company in October 2022, Musk began to make his impact felt on Twitter (rebranded X the following summer). Perhaps the most high-profile and controversial figure to have his account reactivated was the former President Donald Trump, who had been banned by Twitter and other platforms in the wake of the U.S. Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. In the U.K., Tommy Robinson and Carl Benjamin of Gamergate infamy were both unbanned, as was the account belonging to Britain First, a far-right political party. Jones argues that this mass unbanning served as de facto endorsement: “It’s like an anointment, right?” 

“What it has done is it has provided elite legitimacy to all these [figures],” agrees Paolo Gerbaudo, a political theorist at Complutense University of Madrid and author of several books about digital populism. “To basically say the richest man in the world approves this message, and allows it to circulate very widely.”

Among the far-right accounts in Europe allowed back on X was Martin Sellner, the Austrian founder of the pan-European ethno-nationalist Identitarian Movement, which has been linked to the Christchurch terror attack in New Zealand through donations and communications, though Sellner said he had nothing do with the attack. Soon, Musk also began to post about supposed tensions around immigration and perceived “woke” threats to western civilization.

On Oct. 10, 2023, in response to a thread by conservative pundit Konstantin Kisin that pro-Palestinian protests in European cities were an indictment on immigration and showed that “Europe has committed suicide,” Musk commented, “If current trends continue, civil war in Europe is inevitable.” Rolling Stone counted six times in October and November last year that Musk posted that civil war was “trending,” “brewing,” or “headed” for Europe in response to videos and posts purporting to show immigration causing unrest and societal breakdown and which in several cases also perpetuated the Great Replacement conspiracy theory. In reality, the posts mostly highlighted isolated incidents at overwhelmingly peaceful pro-Palestinian protests.

Meanwhile, far-right groups and accounts benefited greatly from Musk’s attention. This was especially the case for Robinson, who has 1 million followers on X, now his primary platform since being banned from Facebook and Instagram in 2019 for repeatedly breaking the platforms’ rules on hate speech. Robinson has repeatedly thanked Elon Musk for allowing him back on X, noting on July 25 that his account had reached a billion impressions in the previous months.

The weekend before the riots started, Robinson held a large rally in central London, on July 27, attracting thousands of supporters, where he screened a film repeating false claims about a Syrian refugee that caused him to lose a libel case in 2021. He was due in court on July 29 — by chance the same day as the tragic murders in Southport — for breaching an injunction preventing him from releasing the film. Instead of appearing at the court hearing, Robinson was arrested at the U.K. border for failing to comply with a stop-and-search order by police, and released on bail, at which point he skipped the country. Robinson would go on to falsely claim that he was detained in relation to the rally. 

Here’s where Musk first intervened. On July 30, before a brick had even left a rioter’s hand, Musk replied to a German climate-change denier’s post about Robinson’s arrest; Musk wrote: “For what reasons is he defined as a terrorist? Has he committed a violent crime or expressed clear intent to commit a violent crime?” 

As the following events unfolded, Robinson would post repeatedly in defense of the rioters, as well as about “two-tier” policing — he was among the first to push that theory — while accusing groups of Muslim counter-protesters of being violent. Blaming the government’s immigration policies for the unrest, Robinson riled up his followers even while he himself was reported to be far away, lounging in Cyprus. Robinson found time to speak to far-right pundit Alex Jones about the “mini-revolution in Great Britain,” which he said was “partly thanks to Elon Musk” for giving him and his supporters a voice again.

While Musk is only one factor in the violence that was about to unfold in the U.K., he had spent his near two-year reign over X undermining practically any commitment to responsible communication that the platform previously had. He had replaced the previous blue-check identity verification system with an easily abused payment-based system. He had disbanded Twitter’s trust and safety council. And then there’s the way he had molded the platform in his own image. 

“He hasn’t only changed the whole nature of the platform to be more dangerous, but [he] personally is involved in fanning the flames of xenophobia and hatred that were important in sustaining the violence we’ve seen in the U.K.,” says Jones. The conditions were all in place. All that was required was a spark.

In this case, that spark was lit by a 55-year-old woman named Bernadette Spofforth.

Anatomy of a disinfo spiral

At close to 5 p.m. on July 29, Spofforth made a new post to her 63,000 followers on X, where she has published a steady stream of Covid-skeptic, anti-lockdown content in recent years. Her tweet contained a screenshot of a LinkedIn post from a man identifying as a parent whose children had been present during the attack in Southport. His post claimed that the assailant was an immigrant, while calling for the U.K.’s borders to be closed. In posting the screenshot, Spofforth also named the attacker, “Ali al-Shakati,” and assigned him the backstory of an asylum seeker who had arrived in the U.K. on a boat the previous year. She alleged he was known to both mental health and security services, without citing sources. 

Even though Spofforth eventually deleted the post and would go on to claim that she wasn’t the first person to use the name, the damage was done. The name “al-Shakati” spread across X and other platforms. A pseudo-news account with fewer than 3,500 followers mentioned the name in an article. Then a much bigger X account, End Wokeness, posted the false information to its nearly 3 million users. By the afternoon of July 30, the day of the first riot, “al-Shakati” had amassed 30,000 mentions on X, according to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). U.K. police would ultimately arrest Spofforth on suspicion of stirring racial hatred by spreading false information, though she was released after 36 hours without charge. Spofforth later stated that her “crime was sharing a tweet, which I deleted and apologized for sharing as soon I realized it contained inaccurate information,” but an investigation by Jones identified Spofforth’s post as the first time it was mentioned anywhere, which is also supported by ISD’s analysis. 

Some of Musk’s first posts related to the U.K. riots concerned policing and the idea that the U.K. was slipping into totalitarianism for arresting people for their social media posts. On Aug. 1, Musk replied to Europe Invasion, an account that posts a steady stream of far-right, anti-immigrant content, which had shared a video of an older female protester being handcuffed with the caption: “BREAKING: British police are out of control, arresting patriotic Brits. ‘I’m 73 years old, I’m here for the murdered children.’” Musk’s comment — merely two exclamation marks — might seem insignificant. But content that Musk interacts with receives an incomparable boost. That’s because since his takeover of Twitter in 2022, he has reshaped the algorithm to conjure himself as a ubiquitous, hugely influential presence on the platform. He recently hit 200 million followers, making him X’s most followed account. On Aug. 3, Musk again posted a double exclamation mark comment to the following post by an account called “PeterSweden7”: “BREAKING: Government advisor in Britain suggests implementing LOCKDOWNS to stop protests against open borders that turned into riots.” The false claim gained 1.4 million views. 

Some of the accounts Musk interacts with have dubious origins. Although Europe Invasion’s profile page says that it was set up in 2010, posts prior to February 2024 have been deleted. While its logo of the lettering “EI,” surrounded by a circle of white stars set against a red background, and cover image saying “News from Europe,” in the yellow-and-blue colors of the EU flag, might fool some users into thinking it’s a legitimate news outlet, Europe Invasion’s posts are almost all anti-immigrant, inflammatory, and designed to appeal to far-right audiences. 

One recent post repeated disinformation that British woman Anita Rose was murdered by two “Somali immigrants,” which police have said is false; it gained more than a million views. Another post with 5.5 million views hailed the false claim that there were “mass deportations” of Iraqi immigrants from Sweden and asked the question: “Do you want this to be implemented throughout Europe?” The account currently has more than half a million followers and its posts have received 1.1 billion impressions in the past three months.

The U.K. riots also inspired Musk to resurface his “civil war” rhetoric from the previous fall. On Aug. 4, the right-wing Libs of TikTok account posted a video that showed rioters clashing with police and captioned, “Wtf is going on in the U.K. Total madness.” It was reposted by right-wing commentator Ashley St. Clair, who wrote: “The effects of mass migration and open borders is what’s going on.” Musk replied, “Civil war is inevitable.” 

Reposting a video of police arresting a man in his home on suspicion of online hate speech, Musk wrote: “Arrested for making comments on Facebook! Is this Britain or the Soviet Union?” This post gained 48 million views. Musk also posted an image of the cartoon Family Guy’s Peter Griffin about to be executed by electric chair, with the caption: “In 2030 for making a Facebook comment that the U.K. government didn’t like.” That post received 84 million views. 

Aug. 5 saw Musk turn his fire on the British government as he began directing posts to the prime minister, Keir Starmer. In reply to a post from Starmer’s X account in which he denounced violence and promised to apply criminal law online and offline, Musk posted: “Shouldn’t you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?” The next day, he reposted a video by right-wing author Andy Ngo claiming to show “armed ‘Muslim patrol’ members,” with the caption, “Why aren’t all communities protected in Britain? @Keir_Starmer,” which gained nearly 70 million views. Shortly afterward, Musk adopted the #TwoTierKeir hashtag, promoting the conspiracy theory that police dealt more harshly with far-right, predominantly white rioters than protesters of color. Jones analyzed the #TwoTierKeir hashtag and found that it was “bobbing along” until Musk jumped on it; his usage gained far more impressions than anyone else who had tweeted it. “So he’s taking it mainstream,” Jones says.

In his coup de grace, Musk reposted a false post by the far-right party Britain First’s co-leader Ashlea Simon claiming that those arrested in the riots would be sent to “detainment camps” on the Falkland Islands. The original post contained an image faked to look like it came from the website of U.K. newspaper The Daily Telegraph. Musk quickly deleted his post, but not before 1.7 million people viewed it. 

In response, the prime minister’s spokesperson said there was “no justification” for Musk’s comments that “civil war” was inevitable. The U.K.’s courts minister called his comments “pretty deplorable.”

This Tuesday, police announced fresh charges against the Southport suspect for producing the biological toxin Ricin and possessing a PDF file titled “Military studies in the Jihad against the Tyrants — the al-Qaida training manual.” Although the police stressed that they were not investigating the Southport stabbings as a terrorist incident, and urged against speculation over the suspect’s motivation that could jeopardize the trial, Farage quickly posted that he was “right all along.” Tommy Robinson, who this Monday was jailed for 18 months after admitting contempt of court, could not comment directly, but an “admin” on his X account posted: “They’ve known for months that the Southport beast who murdered 3 little girls was a jihadi.” In comments criticized by the ex-head of counter-terrorism police in the U.K. and former state prosecutors, both candidates for leadership of the Conservative Party have suggested the Labour government had withheld information about the suspect.

Most of what happened in the U.K.’s week-plus of violence can’t be laid at Musk’s door. Right-wing tabloids and inflammatory rhetoric from politicians had been generating anti-migrant sentiment for years. But Musk’s takeover of Twitter has unleashed a level of hate speech that Gerbaudo calls “astonishing,” particularly on the right. “And so it’s become a total free-for-all — this combination of algorithmic boosting and [removal of moderation] has been devastating.”

None of which bodes well for the U.S. presidential election.

Potential U.S. unrest

As Election Day nears, Musk has been using X to intervene on behalf of Trump’s campaign in a way that’s unprecedented for a platform owner.

Apart from Musk appearing alongside Trump at rallies, winning the promised position of cost-cutting czar in an eventual Trump administration, and pouring $119 million into helping Trump and other Republicans, his America PAC has purchased digital ads that have scored more than 30 million impressions. The Super PAC has also funded and led a field program designed to help Trump turn out irregular, Republican-leaning voters. The world’s richest man has additionally used his X account to promote a petition for registered voters in swing states to pledge their support for the First and Second Amendments — that is, free speech and the right to bear arms — to identify registered voters, offering a $47 payment for each successful referral to the petition (and $100 in Pennsylvania).

His most recent innovation has been to give away $1 million to one lucky signee per day. For America PAC’s X account, Musk took over the @America handle from a user previously critical of Trump and Musk, using it to advocate for Trump and against Harris. Analysis by The Washington Post also found that under the helm of Musk, X has seen Republican accounts go viral and get more followers, while Democratic accounts have virtually disappeared from people’s feeds.

Meanwhile, Musk has been posting conspiracy theories about election fraud and Harris counting on undocumented immigrants to vote. (It’s illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, and exceedingly rare.) Musk has also amplified misleading claims that the “far-left” Labour party in the U.K. had engaged in election interference, because some Labour activists and staffers were volunteering for the Harris campaign — a practice that has been normal on both political sides for decades. “This is war,” he posted in reaction to the story. 

In the event that Harris wins, Musk could play a dangerous role in stoking public rejection of the results. “I would not be surprised at all if he were to incite protests against the results,” says Gerbaudo, who worries that Musk and the Trump campaign may be planning some “shock move” shortly before polling day that completely upends public opinion. A scandal or revelation coordinated by Musk and the Trump campaign would bring all of X’s algorithmic firepower to bear. “I think that they are going to do whatever they can to turn the tide in their favor,” Gerbaudo says.

Musk on Tuesday requested that users report evidence of supposed “election integrity issues” to an X community set up by America PAC to document any “potential instances of voter fraud and irregularities that Americans are experiencing.”

On the surface, what Musk is doing to X makes little financial sense. His takeover has been a disaster for the company, which has lost millions of users and around 70 percent of its value. It has, on the other hand, had a radicalizing effect on swathes of the population. “In terms of militant, far-right minorities, it has given them confidence,” Gerbaudo says. “It has given them a sense that they are basically legitimized.” 

But some are suspicious of Musk’s hard-right turn, given his former support for the Democrats. In the past, he has even been targeted by right-wing networks online for his stature as a champion of green tech. While the way he’s run X may make little financial sense, backing Trump may be the prudent choice for protecting his wider empire. 

“When you get to the point of wealth of Musk, if you want to keep your wealth, you basically need to enter politics one way or another, and protect your wealth, and maneuver government in ways that favor your business interest,” says Gerbaudo. 

It’s worth noting that until recently Harris supported a previous proposal by President Joe Biden to tax unrealized capital gains, which could hit Musk hard. And as The Lever previously reported, if Musk ends up taking a job in Trump’s administration, he would be eligible for a special tax benefit worth up to tens of billions of dollars.

As for Musk’s seemingly inexplicable gaffes and constant controversies on X, Gerbaudo sees them as warning signs of where rampant concentrated wealth and capitalism can lead: “Because their power becomes so big that it is also extremely fragile. They develop this sense of almightiness, they want to do it all by themselves, they become overburdened … to the point that they put their interests in danger.”

There might be a more basic reason for Musk’s increasingly extreme tendencies. Eva Galperin, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Director of Cybersecurity, believes Musk’s behavior may stem from a “desire for adoration” and frustration with negative reactions to his Twitter takeover. “I think that he is growing increasingly unhinged, and more and more attracted to the grievance culture of the right because he is not getting the adoration that he believes is rightfully his,” Galperin says. “This is exactly the same thing that we see with Trump and all kinds of right-wing ideologues.” 

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As was the case in the U.K., the true role of a social platform in stoking civil unrest can be difficult to disentangle. But one thing is guaranteed in the U.S. election, according to Galperin: Musk’s self-importance. If Harris wins and Trump stages an attempt to overturn the election result, Musk will claim that any part he plays through X made very little difference. 

And if Trump becomes president again, whether at the ballot box or through another insurrection, “Elon Musk will take all of the credit and enjoy his position in the new administration,” Galperin says.