How do you solve a problem like Elon? That is the dilemma facing Keir Starmer. Musk seems particularly exercised about the state of the UK and is quick to criticise the man he calls ‘two-tier Keir’. Using his platform X, he has weighed in on just about all the worst Labour news, from over-taxing farmers to mass-releasing prisoners while locking up others for speaking freely about the Southport riots. ‘Don’t expect him to be invited in for a fireside chat any time soon,’ says a minister.
Now, following Donald Trump’s re-election, another story could bring Starmer’s inner circle into a direct confrontation with Musk, plunging the PM’s top aide into a high-profile congressional investigation.
Downing Street and Ofcom struggle with the pace of what one MP calls a ‘24/7 hate factory’
The latest controversy centres on a hitherto obscure group founded by Starmer’s new Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney, back in 2018. The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) launched at a time when Jeremy Corbyn’s grip on Labour looked unshakable. Locked out of power, moderates diverted their energies outside the party. For 18 months, McSweeney was listed as a director of CCDH, which focused on combating left-wing anti-Semitism, encouraging a successful advertising boycott of the Corbynite Canary website. ‘Destroy the Canary or the Canary destroys us,’ McSweeney reportedly told Labour Together MPs. But in April 2020, he quit to work for Starmer, leaving the project to his ‘dear friend’ Imran Ahmed, a fellow former Labour staffer.
The pandemic proved transformative in CCDH’s fortunes. Covid vaccines sparked a huge online debate and policy-makers embraced outlets waging the fight against ‘anti-vaccination’ propagandists. McSweeney’s outfit joined Whitehall meetings of the Counter Disinformation Policy Forum, tackling the ‘threat posed by Covid-19 mis- and disinformation’. Ahmed personally advised the UK government on ‘conspiracist “news” sites’. Grants from big charities such as the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust enabled the CCDH to set up a Washington non-profit in April 2021. In London, the Center continues to enjoy influence. It met with counter-terrorism police in this summer’s riots and suggested ‘emergency powers’ could be used to ‘fight misinformation and de-amplify harmful posts’ in the future.
In America, the donations rolled in, with the Center boasting $1.4 million in its first 12 months. Tinseltown bestowed its blessing too: Hollywood super-agent Aleen Keshishian joined its board while actor Mark Ruffalo praised Ahmed as a ‘man of great character’. The Center’s activities soon earned it the enmity of conservatives, who railed against its role in the ‘censorship industrial complex’. ‘Cliquey, left-wing’ and ‘selective in choosing targets’ is how one source who worked within the group describes it. Successes included boycott campaigns against Breitbart, the Daily Wire and other outlets for sharing ‘climate change denial’.
However, Musk’s purchase of Twitter in October 2022 brought the CCDH’s success to a sudden halt. With the site rebranded as ‘X’, the CCDH quickly turned on Musk’s new content moderation policies, holding him responsible for a ‘rise in hate speech’ on the platform. Ahmed claimed the Tesla founder was personally undermining ‘decades of progress’ on the ‘human rights’ of ethnic minorities ‘at an ever-accelerating rate’. A lawsuit followed, with X alleging the Center had taken ‘unlawful’ steps to access its data. The CCDH successfully countered on the grounds of free speech and honest criticism.
Then, last month, leaked internal CCDH documents revealed that ‘Kill Musk’s Twitter’ was explicitly listed as a top strategic priority. Plans had been drafted to pressure advertisers, financially destabilise the platform and ‘trigger EU and UK regulatory action’. Ahmed has since admitted that ‘Kill Musk’s Twitter’ was used internally by his staff as a ‘shorthand’ for ‘tackling’ X’s business model. Leaked notes boasted of dozens of ‘meetings on the Hill’ with staff pushing legislators for an ‘independent digital regulator’ similar to the role played by Ofcom in the UK’s Online Safety Act.
The revelations, published a fortnight before the presidential election, sent Republicans in Congress into overdrive. The ‘Weaponization Committee’ run by Trump ally Jim Jordan fired off a two-page letter to Ahmed, demanding files which relate to ‘killing’ or ‘adverse action against Elon Musk’s X’. Supporters of Ahmed’s work fear the CCDH is a victim of the ‘Orban playbook’, in which Musk’s allies wield the machinery of the state against its opponents. The documents are due by 21 November.
As Musk is appointed to head the new ‘efficiency’ department in Trump’s government, the CCDH controversy perhaps illustrates the pitfalls of taking on ‘Big Tech’. During the Southport riots, No. 10 initially hit back hard against Musk’s claims that ‘civil war’ was ‘inevitable’ before adopting a policy of non-engagement. Downing Street and Ofcom struggle with the pace of what one MP calls a ‘24/7 hate factory’. It’s a challenge Starmer’s predecessors never had to face.
Instinctively, most within Labour want more action against Musk. Technology Secretary Peter Kyle, who is reviewing social-media laws, complains that Musk is ‘accountable to no one’. Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, is working on the ‘Local News Strategy’, which aims to address the ‘digital deserts’ which ministers believe allow disinformation to thrive, as in Southport. The Guardian this week joined a string of MPs quitting X, while Labour staff fret in WhatsApp groups whether they should too.
On the right, the contrast could not be more stark. Kemi Badenoch is a self-proclaimed ‘huge fan of Elon Musk’, and told The Spectator that his Twitter takeover ‘has been a fantastic thing for freedom of speech’. Nigel Farage is believed to have met the man himself at the Trump victory party at Mar-a-Lago. The Reform leader is the only MP the Tesla boss follows on X.
The relationship between the British government and the world’s richest man is likely to be an ongoing saga. As four years of Trump 2.0 loom, all signs suggest that Labour still has no clear idea of what to do.
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