Kemi Badenoch has claimed she is a “huge fan” of the world’s richest man, X owner Elon Musk, in a new interview.
The Tory leadership hopeful and shadow housing secretary revealed that she supports the controversial figure because of his advocacy of freedom of speech.
Speaking to The Spectator, she said: “I think Elon Musk has been a fantastic thing for freedom of speech. I will hold my hand up and say, I’m a huge fan of Elon Musk.
“I look at Twitter before he took over and after: there is a lot more free speech.
She continued: “Yes, there are many, many more things that I see on X, as he calls it, that I don’t like.
“But I also know that views are not suppressed the way that they were, that there was a cultural establishment – that was very left – that controlled quite a lot of discourse on that platform.”
Musk has turned X (formerly Twitter) upside down since his takeover almost two years ago.
The billionaire, who is a vocal Donald Trump supporter, reinstated several previously banned accounts including that of the former US president, and introduced a subscription service to the platform.
More recently, he made headlines when he repeated baseless conspiracy theories about a “two-tier” policing system in the UK, suggesting the far-right rioters seen in August ended up with a harsher punishment compared to previous pro-Palestine demonstrators.
He was also slapped down by No.10 when he claimed “civil war is inevitable” in the UK. Downing Street said: “There’s no justification for comments like that.”
Badenoch, who is currently competing against frontrunner Robert Jenrick, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat for the title of Tory leader, was the only leadership hopeful to announce support for Musk in her interview with the Spectator.
Jenrick said he was “not going to be booking a tête-à-tête with Elon Musk any time soon”, while Cleverly said you have to be “very, very careful about curtailing voices that you disagree with”.
Tugendhat appeared to question how Musk has handled X, saying: “If you are running a platform that is entirely dominated by anonymous bots, is that freedom of speech – or just propaganda?
“If you are allowed to say whatever you like but you put your name to it, that’s freedom of speech. And it should be defended, absolutely.”