A co-chair of the Conservative Party has accused Elon Musk of attempting to "buy" Reform UK following reports the tech tycoon is planning to gift Nigel Farage's party $100m (£78m).
In a recording of a video call with Tory activists heard by Sky News, Lord Johnson of Lainston said it was "extraordinary" that Mr Musk, the owner of X and Tesla and the world's richest man, was "basically buying one of the political parties here".
He said Nigel Farage, the Reform leader, should "be frankly embarrassed about that", saying he risked becoming a "puppet of a foreign politician" if he accepted any donations from Mr Musk.
Lord Johnson's comments, which were made during a video call with Conservatives Abroad earlier this week, coincide with Kemi Badenoch's trip to the US, where she hopes to build ties with the Republican Party ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration.
The Tory leader is set to hold meetings with Republicans on Capitol Hill, but it is unclear whether she will meet with president-elect Trump or his top advisers.
The reports about Mr Musk's potential donation to Reform first emerged in The Times. The newspaper said Tory officials were concerned Mr Musk was preparing to give £78m to Mr Farage - an ally of Mr Trump - as a "f*** you Starmer payment".
The newspaper reported that if Mr Musk does decide to make the donation, he would do so through the British arm of his social media firm X, formerly Twitter, to circumvent UK rules that prevent foreign donations to a political party.
Mr Farage has dismissed suggestions he had received any donations from Mr Musk, telling BBC Radio 4's PM this week that he had discussed "nothing of the kind" with the tech billionaire.
The Reform leader said that while he was a "huge admirer of Elon Musk", who will co-lead a new department of government efficiency when Mr Trump assumes office, he had "never solicited a donation from him, and one has never been offered".
However, he did indicate Reform would be willing to accept money if Mr Musk decided to offer it, saying: "Would I accept money, given that we're up against two big parties who are very heavily funded, and we scrape by mostly on our burgeoning membership fees? Yes, of course, I'd accept money."
Lord Johnson, who was appointed co-chair of the Conservatives alongside Nigel Huddleston after the election, said he found it "bizarre for the party that purports to be the party of Great Britain...to be willing to become the puppet of a foreign politician".
"It's completely extraordinary that Elon Musk is basically buying one of the political parties here," he continued.
"I would have thought Nigel Farage should be frankly embarrassed about that and it will backfire significantly on them in terms of their core voter base, their ambitions and how they manage their affairs - so I think this is extremely bad for Farage to become a boy puppet of Elon Musk; it's just something I'm quite baffled by."
0 Commentaires