Elon Musk posted about race and immigration in Britain far more frequently than about his own company’s historic stock market listing in the weeks leading up to SpaceX’s initial public offering, according to a Guardian analysis of his activity on X.
Examining Musk’s posts, replies and reposts between 31 May and 12 June, the Guardian found he had posted 303 times on the subject of race and immigration, almost three-quarters of which related specifically to UK politics. Over the same window, he posted just 114 times about SpaceX itself — the company that, on 12 June, went public in a listing that made him the world’s first trillionaire.
The period was an especially tense one in Britain. It followed the sentencing of Vickrum Digwa for the murder of teenager Henry Nowak, which prompted claims of “anti-white” policing and clashes between far-right protesters and police, and coincided with violent rioting in Belfast after a knife attack in the city; a 30-year-old man has since been charged with attempted murder in connection with that stabbing. As UK ministers appealed for calm, Musk — who lives primarily in the US — was instead approaching one of the most consequential weeks of his business career.
The scale of Musk’s personal importance to the listing makes his focus during that period notable. SpaceX had earmarked an unusually large share of its stock for retail investors, banking on Musk’s popularity to help hit a $75bn (£56bn) fundraising target; it ultimately raised $85.7bn. The company’s own IPO filing with US regulators had explicitly flagged the risk posed by its founder’s public conduct, warning that Musk’s actions and statements “may draw significant public attention and scrutiny… and could potentially have a positive or negative impact on our business, relationships with customers and regulators, or stock price.” Yet on the night before the offering, rather than courting the retail buyers the strategy depended on, Musk reposted video of Rupert Lowe — a British MP and leader of the party he founded, Restore Britain — calling for the deportation of migrants unable to support themselves financially. It was one of almost a dozen posts Musk made that day alone on UK immigration and politics, alongside musings on multiculturalism and what he characterised as the failings of Western civilisation. Asked by another user why the world’s richest man spent his time on culture-war disputes rather than “enjoying his billions on a beach,” Musk replied: “Nothing else matters if civilization falls.”
At points during the period, Musk posted up to five times within ten minutes about the Nowak case, highlighting details of the teenager’s death and amplifying commentary on it from accounts in the US, France and Japan; at least 20 of these posts were viewed a combined 10 million times. Reacting to Musk’s intervention following Digwa’s sentencing, the prime minister, Keir Starmer, accused him of trying to sow division. “Musk again has been interfering in our politics in the last few days, trying to whip up division. That is not who we are in Britain,” Starmer said. “In Britain we are reasonable, tolerant people. When we have a terrible case like Henry’s case, Henry Nowak, we react calmly, as his family has done.”
This was not an isolated intervention. Musk has previously voiced support for the activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, including appearing via livestream at his Unite the Kingdom rally in 2025, remarks for which the British government condemned him — among them the line, “Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die.” The Guardian’s analysis suggests this focus has intensified sharply over time: fewer than 7% of Musk’s posts touched on UK race and immigration politics during the 2024 summer riots, compared with 31% during the period surrounding the Southampton and Belfast unrest this year.
Dr Michael Vaughan, a research fellow at the London School of Economics’ International Inequalities Institute, said Musk’s combination of extreme wealth and closeness to far-right figures had made him a distorting force in democratic politics. “Musk has become increasingly important in European politics in recent years at a time when his wealth has increased in hugely exponential terms,” he said. “From Musk, we have seen a language of encouragement and legitimisation. People who were in organisations that otherwise might have had a fringe status have suddenly acquired a status and legitimacy that makes it harder to discount their relevancy.”
Separate research by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate found that replies to Musk’s posts following the Belfast attack included 240 calls for violence, and that his amplification of Lowe and Robinson had contributed 64 million views to their posts — more than either had generated through their own followings alone.
