Elon Musk and Farage assembly renews reviews he may fund Reform UK

Elon Musk has met Nigel Farage and Nick Sweet, Reform UK’s new treasurer, at Donald Trump’s residence, Mar-a-Largo, reviving hypothesis the billionaire may fund the hard-right occasion.

After the assembly on Monday, Reform launched photographs of Musk sitting with Farage and Sweet, and standing with them beneath a portrait of a younger Trump on the US president-elect’s Florida residence.

The tech billionaire, who has waged an more and more private marketing campaign towards Keir Starmer and the Labour occasion, earlier this month denied a report that he was planning to make a £78m donation to Reform UK.

Nonetheless, there’ll now be elevated hypothesis he may intervene in UK politics and assist Reform UK’s prospects earlier than subsequent 12 months’s native elections.

The occasion launched a press release by the Reform UK chief and Sweet wherein they mentioned that they’d met Musk for an hour.

“We realized an important deal in regards to the Trump floor recreation and could have ongoing discussions on different areas,” it added. “We solely have yet another probability left to avoid wasting the west and we are able to do nice issues collectively. Our thanks additionally to President Trump for permitting us to make use of Mar-a-Lago for this historic assembly. The particular relationship is alive and effectively.”

Farage and Sweet didn’t see Trump, who was assembly tech billionaires on a day when the CEO of the Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank appeared alongside him to announce plans to take a position $100bn within the US.

Nonetheless, the Guardian understands that they did meet the US vice-president elect, JD Vance, who’s the favorite to run because the Republican candidate within the 2028 presidential election. Vance, who was a enterprise capitalist earlier than coming into politics, has near hyperlinks to US tech billionaires, together with Peter Thiel.

Sweet, a billionaire property developer and former Conservative donor, was unveiled by Farage final week as Reform UK’s new treasurer, with the duty of elevating funds to combat the following common election.

Whereas electoral legal guidelines in Britain stipulate all donations and loans to political events price greater than £500 should come from donors registered within the UK, there are avenues Musk may use to again Reform.

Choices embody going by the UK arm of his social media firm, X, or by securing UK citizenship, which his father, Errol, says he’s eligible for as a result of his grandmother was British.