UK minister suggests government could ditch 'dangerous' Elon Musk's X

The UK government should consider the possibility of leaving social media platform X, a high-profile minister has suggested.

Speaking at the Labour Party conference, energy minister and former Labour leader Ed Miliband took aim at Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X (formerly Twitter). According to The Guardian, Miliband painted Musk as part of a far-right cabal "who want to take away people's rights, take away people's freedoms."

A number of British politicians have blasted Musk ever since he appeared via video link at a far-right rally in London – organized by convicted criminal Tommy Robinson – and called for a "change of government." Musk even suggested that it should be by means of violence, if necessary.

Discussing Musk, Miliband said: "He called for the overthrow of our government. He incited violence on our streets. His platform, X, promotes disinformation," before hammering home his feelings on Musk by describing him as "a dangerous person."

The energy minister was then asked if this meant that the government should follow in the footsteps of some of its own MPs who have independently taken the decision to leave X, to which he responded, albeit albeit in less fiery terms: "It's possible."

The Register asked both X and the UK government to comment, but have yet to receive a response.

The world's richest man has regularly tried to use his influence to interfere with British politics. The South African-born American citizen has previously clashed with UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and his government on several occasions, taking aim at what he, for some reason, called the UK's "tyrannical police state."

That outburst came not long after an Amnesty International investigation claimed that Musk's X platform "played a central role" in promoting misinformation that stoked racially charged violence in the aftermath of the murder of three young girls in Southport in 2024. The report suggested that "Musk's interventions demonstrably shaped online discourse."

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The X owner has also regularly been accused of using his own account to share misinformation with his 226 million followers – and that's before taking into account how the algorithm shoves his posts into the feeds of non-followers.

Despite repeated warnings over X's evolution into what some might describe as a wretched hive of scum and villainy, governments and organizations are still reluctant to leave the social media platform they rely on as a communications platform. Some, however, have bucked the trend.

These include the City of Southampton, which left the platform in February, and Devon County Council, which stopped monitoring X last year. Both cited the rise in misinformation and abuse on the platform as reasons for stepping away.

Elsewhere in Europe, the City Council of Barcelona left X in January, citing how the decision was based on "the city's commitment to upholding the public's right to access real and accurate information" and that this commitment was incompatible with maintaining a presence on "a platform mired in a spiral of disinformation and intolerance."

Meanwhile, in the United States, public advocacy groups have called for federal government agencies to quit using X's AI, Grok, calling it unsafe and ideologically biased. ®