Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has called for the release of imprisoned far-right agitator Tommy Robinson.
In several recent posts on his social media site X, the billionaire expressed support for the founder of the anti-Islam English Defence League and railed against Sir Keir Starmer.
Musk – a prominent advisor to US president-elect Donald Trump – said the prime minister was to blame for failures relating to the Rochdale grooming scandal while he was director of public prosecutions.
He posted and reposted multiple calls for Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, to be released from prison.
The activist was jailed for 18 months in October after pleading guilty to showing a defamatory video of a Syrian refugee during a protest last year.
Judges previously heard that he fled the UK hours after being bailed last summer, following an alleged breach of the terms of a 2021 court order.
The order was imposed when he was successfully sued by refugee Jamal Hijazi for making false claims about him, preventing Robinson from repeating any of the allegations.
Pictures later showed him on a sun lounger at a holiday resort in Cyprus while violent riots erupted across the UK in the wake of the attack in Southport.
Posts promoted by Musk suggested Robinson was ‘smeared as a “far-right racist” for exposing the mass betrayal of English girls by the state’, an apparent reference to the grooming gang scandal.
A recent post from the South African businessman asked: ‘Why is Tommy Robinson in a solitary confinement prison for telling the truth?
‘He should be freed and those who covered up this travesty should take his place in that cell.’
He also suggested Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, ‘deserves to be in prison’ after she rejected requests for a government-led inquiry into child abuse in Oldham.
GB News reported Phillips said in a letter to Oldham Council that it was for them alone ‘to decide to commission an inquiry into child sexual exploitation locally, rather than for the government to intervene’.
Such an approach was previously taken by Telford and Wrekin Council, which commissioned an independent inquiry into similar reports of widespread child sexual exploitation in 2019.
But prominent Conservatives including ex-PM Liz Truss and Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen were among those criticising Phillips’ decision, with Houchen describing it as ‘sickening’.
In a separate post, Musk suggested Sir Keir ‘allowed’ grooming gangs ‘to exploit young girls without facing justice’ while he was head of the Crown Prosecution Service between 2008 and 2013.
While he admitted the justice system had failed victims of sexual exploitation, Sir Keir was responsible for the appointment of Nazir Afzal – who prosecuted the perpetrators in Rochdale – as the head of a national network to tackle child abuse which oversaw convictions of other gangs.
He also introduced measures to overhaul the way child sexual abuse is handled by the justice system in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.
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