Bromance on the rocks With their love-in over, where does tycoon's brush-off leave Farage?

It was the morning after the rather disappointing day before. "At the moment, I am just letting things lie," Nigel Farage told the Guardian with a dry chuckle on being asked whether he might attempt a rapprochement with the world's richest man.

- Daniel Boffey

It has been quite some three weeks since Farage and Reform's treasurer, Nick Candy, enjoyed a well-publicised meeting with Elon Musk at Donald Trump's Mar a Lago home in Florida. According to Farage's own account at the time, Musk had been "generous with his time" and there had been talks about a donation to Reform's coffers. It appeared to herald a new dawn in British politics.

"He described the Labour and Conservative parties as the uniparty, and left us in no doubt that he is right behind us," Farage wrote of their discussions on 16 December. On 2 January, Musk, among his many tweets about the UK and child abuse, tweeted: "Britain needs Reform now."

By Sunday, a different mood had taken the capricious billionaire. "The Reform party needs a new leader," Musk told his 211 million followers. "Farage doesn't have what it takes."

The unlikely bromance appeared to be over. The cause was seemingly Farage's attempt to distance himself from Musk's support for Tommy Robinson, the convicted fraudster and former English Defence League leader who is in prison for contempt of court.

But does it really matter?

It has been contended by some Reform insiders that the row has helped the party by distinguishing it in the public consciousness from Robinson's worldview.

"And there was never going to be a donation [from Musk]," said Gawain Towler, who was a press adviser to Farage until October. It was something cooked up in the media, and stoked by the principle players for their own purposes, he suggested.