In 2012, Elon Musk had just completed a business trip to London and Oxford. "Just returned… I met with many interesting people," he wrote

Elon Musk's curious fixation with Britain

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2024-12-22 12:00:05

In 2012, Elon Musk had just completed a business trip to London and Oxford. "Just returned… I met with many interesting people," he wrote on Twitter. "I really like Britain!"

"Civil war is inevitable" … "Britain is going full Stalin"… "The people of Britain have had enough of a tyrannical police state".

He has repeatedly got into spats with politicians including Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, he has amplified voices on the right and far-right online and is in talks to donate to Reform UK, according to the party's leader Nigel Farage.

So why has Musk's relationship with America's closest ally apparently soured and what, if anything, does he hope to achieve?

The self-proclaimed "Chief Troll Officer" often exaggerates in an ambiguous way, unclear if he's being sincere or ironic.

When he writes, "Is this Britain or the Soviet Union?" he doesn't really mean that Britain is a totalitarian Communist state but also, he sort of does. Often he reposts content with just a single word - "interesting" - or an emoji, rather than going into details.