Why Musk is unlikely to feel 'full force of the law'

The X owner’s inflammatory remarks on the riots have riled the PM. But stopping the tech guru from using his platform as he wishes will be difficult

- Chris Stokel-Walker

Elon Musk has managed to insert himself into the headlines, and into the targets of Keir Starmer and his government in the last week. The entrepreneur and owner of social media platform X/Twitter has taken potshots at Starmer and his government, claiming that the UK is in the midst of a civil war.

Musk has posted more than a dozen broadsides aimed at the prime minister and his government over their response to the Southport riots. In so doing, he’s raised the ire of ministers, who have suggested that “anyone who is whipping up violence online will face the full force of the law” – which presumably would include Musk.

As the man himself put it on X, it’s been a “busy week”.

Musk isn’t shy about courting attention. But his comments in the last week have raised the hackles of UK politicians and commentators, who are calling for authorities to take action against him. In many ways, Musk’s public proclamations – made to his more than 193 million followers on X, the platform that he spent $44bn buying in October 2022, and which has subsequently halved in value – are not unusual.

Musk is a culture warrior and a limelight hog. He’s also always eager to prod and poke at authority, and to push the limits of decency. As Musk told his biographer, Walter Isaacson, “I’ve got a bad habit of biting off more than I can chew.” The fights Musk picks tend to be against world leaders, with whom he appears to think he is on a similar footing. It’s not something he’s particularly wary of doing, based on historical precedent.

Musk has previously sought to play chicken with regulators around the world for a variety of different reasons. He continually needles US financial regulators, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, which sued Musk for market manipulation in 2018 after he sent a jokey tweet suggesting he would take his electric car company, Tesla, private. In 2022, he called them “bastards” at a conference.