Tory co-chair accuses Elon Musk of trying to 'buy' Reform UK

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.

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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...not 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."

His comments appear to signal a shift in tone in the Tories' approach to dealing with Mr Musk, who has indicated strong support for Mr Farage while making disparaging comments about Sir Keir Starmer.

Just this week, Tory shadow minister and former party chair Richard Holden said he would welcome a donation from Mr Musk on the grounds that support for Mr Farage's party would only serve to help Labour.

"I'd say exactly the same to Elon Musk, and say look if you want to see Keir Starmer out of office, then more broadly if it's yourself or anybody else, you've got to support the Conservatives," he told GB News.

Ms Badenoch has also described herself as a "huge fan" of Mr Musk, saying he was "a fantastic thing for freedom of speech".

Lord Johnson said he believed the reports about a potential donation from Mr Musk to the Conservatives' rivals was "frustrating because it takes a lot of oxygen and I'm very aware of the fact that people are talking about Reform today and they're not talking about Kemi Badenoch and the new Conservative agenda".

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"We have to make sure that we get the attention and we dominate people's sort of attention span in order to make sure that they start looking back at us again rather than a frankly unrealistic alternative," he said.

As well as causing issues for the Conservatives with his support for Reform, Mr Musk has also had run-ins with the Labour Party, initially over Sir Keir's response to the riots this summer.

The tech tycoon branded the prime minster "two tier Keir" over his response to the disorder, suggesting he oversaw two-tier policing in the UK - the theory propagated among some on the right that some protests and demonstrations are dealt with more harshly than others.

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More recently, Mr Musk was accused of "interference" in British politics by Labour minister Alex Davies-Jones after he labelled the UK a "tyrannical police state" on his social media platform X.

He also reposted a petition signed by nearly three million people calling for another general election just five months after the one in July.

"I would counteract Elon Musk's claims that he does not agree with interference in foreign governments and I believe he shouldn't be doing the same," Ms Davies-Jones told the Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge last month.

A Reform UK spokesperson said: "This leaked recording is the latest demonstration of a Conservative Party in a state of total panic about the momentum of Reform UK in British politics."