How Do You Fix A Problem Like Elon?

The Times newspaper was banned in my household as a child; not due to any perceived lack of journalistic quality, but due to the identify of the owner, one Rupert Murdoch. Similarly, any subscription to Sky was considered beyond the pale - the thinking being that to succumb even only ever so slightly to Murdoch's embrace would be to subject oneself to the creeping influence of his entire worldview.

Murdoch's grip on our society may have waned somewhat in his dotage, but another wealthy foreigner appears to be trying his best to take on the role of chief overseas influencer in the UK, through whatever means available. And when the individual in question is the richest man in the world, he has quite a number of means at his disposal - not least the platform formerly known as Twitter, which it increasingly appears he may have purchased only to further his own influence and, with it, his ego.

Elon Musk has always been a curious and eccentric character, but given his unarguable influence, especially as a member of the incoming administration in DC, it is simply not possible to ignore him, nor indeed does he appear to wish to make it so.

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It appears to me, as one humble user of the of the new “X”, that if the algorithm wants me to see anything, it's what Elon thinks, or at the very least, what Elon wants me to see, which perhaps is no surprise, but is still cause for concern when the individual intent on sharing his views with the world is as irrational and tempestuous as he is impassioned.

I can fully understand why many people these days choose to stay off social media entirely - and X in particular - such is the influence of algorithms upon what we may or may not see in our feeds. And yet the reality is that social media, and perhaps especially X, remains an undoubtedly influential tool.

Something therefore has to give; either we must choose to allow Musk to influence our daily thought-stream, intentionally or otherwise, through his algorithms and eccentric ramblings, or we must take the moral high ground and leave the room.

Yet, leaving X, as an individual at least, is unlikely to achieve any greater good than a little more peace and autonomy in one’s own personal thought-life. For the reality is that, until X is replaced as the world’s social-media platform of choice, the conversation will still be going on; we just won’t be aware of it.

And meanwhile, the capacity for Musk to continue to influence millions of people about considerations such as the next leader of the Reform Party or, oh I don’t know, the overthrow of the entire British state, remains very real. To ignore Musk, therefore, does not appear a particularly useful option, in the long run.

Ought we, instead, to try to manage him? But how do you manage the manager of the algorithm? How do you regulate the regulator? The answer, it appears to me, is not straightforward, though some brave British souls, such as the leaders of the Labour Party and Lib Dems, have decided in recent days to go in all guns blazing.

My own opinion is that dear Keir’s rare impassioned address regarding Musk’s latest set of incendiary comments - even if he did not mention him by name - was one of his most impressive pieces of statecraft to date.

Ed Davey, meanwhile, like the manager of Tottenham Hotspur football club, is at the very least always entertaining and used his own portion of Musk’s platform to call for the US ambassador to be brought in for questioning about her country’s noisiest - and nosiest - influencer.

Perhaps, as often seems to work best when dealing with strongmen, the direct approach may be the one that bears the most fruit in the long run.

But that's not to say that Musk's influence is likely to decrease anytime soon. In the meantime, it seems perfectly plausible that, in time, he may truly come to bear some responsibility for changing the way the British state is run, whether through the entire soft overthrow of our democracy or simply by funding the rise to power of whomever it may be that the Great Elon perceives may have more of “what it takes” to take on Reform than Nigel Farage.

Whatever happens, it’s likely to be an interesting watch, and for my part, I intend to stay in the room, monitoring the conversation and succumbing to wherever Elon’s influence campaign will take me, in much the same way that after my childhood was through, I elected to succumb to Murdoch’s.

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.