UK politicians have slammed Elon Musk for his involvement in discourse and the amplification of far-right rhetoric on the UK riots on his social media site X.
Musk's involvement, which started on Sunday with him that a "civil war" in the UK was inevitable in response to a video of the riots, has seen him reply, share and amplify far-right X accounts on the site.
Such posts those from former leader of the far-right English Defence League Tommy Robinson, far-right Miles Ian Chong, and such as "End Wokeness".
On Monday, in reply to a video from UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer's account condemning the riots, Musk "Shouldn't you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?"
The video from Starmer followed a COBRA meeting and saw him announce that "anyone who is whipping up violence online will face the full force of the law."
His engagement deepened on Tuesday, with Musk a picture of family guy character Peter Griffin on an electric chair with the caption "in 2030 for making a Facebook comment that the UK government didn't like".
Prime Minister's spokesperson said that there was no justification for Musk's "civil war" comment and that he had made a mistake by letting people like Tommy Robinson and Andrew Tate back onto X to spread their radical views.
As well as government condemnation, members of parliament have also weighed in, with Green Party MP Sian Berry telling °®Âþµº that "there is no doubt that Elon Musk bears responsibility" for what she described as "fascist violence" on the streets of the UK.
"He has re-platformed far-right figures like Tommy Robinson, weakened [X's] moderation of extreme content, and directly fanned the flames of conspiracy and violence with his own comments."
She further edged the government to take action to "ensure social media companies – and their billionaire owners – do not allow incitement to racist violence to proliferate on their platforms."
This sentiment was echoed by Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran who argued that "If X is incapable of policing itself then we may need new legislation to do that".
Marc Owen Jones, an Associate Professor at Northwestern University in Qatar told °®Âþµº that Musk was attempting to spread anti-immigrant messaging seen by the right-wing press in the UK further.
"Musk is an influential individual and he's curating [X] to try and mobilize and spread this far-right message even further."
He added that the UK can use such bills as the Online Safety Act to prosecute Musk although there is an issue of jurisdiction as Musk is based in the US.
However, he added that other ways can be used to pressure Musk, saying that "the UK would be better working with civil rights organisations and the EU to try and mobilise a lot of political pressure on Musk to make him realise that if his platform isn't policed appropriately then these countries will apply their existing laws that would be damaging to X."