(Bloomberg) -- Nigel Farage, leader of the populist Reform UK party, said he is in “ongoing negotiations” with Elon Musk about a political donation, the latest sign of a potential collaboration between the pair that could threaten the traditional two-party duopoly of British politics.
Farage, who met with Musk at President-elect Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort on Monday alongside Reform’s new treasurer, the property magnate Nick Candy, said Musk “left us in no doubt that he is right behind us” and that the “issue of money was discussed,” according to an op-ed Farage wrote in the Telegraph newspaper. The Reform leader also said in a statement that he’d met with Vice President-elect JD Vance at the resort.
The prospect of Musk making a significant financial contribution to Reform is a risk for Keir Starmer’s governing Labour Party and the main opposition Tories, with the populist upstart party already challenging them in the polls and Farage now the bookmakers’ favorite to succeed Starmer as prime minister. Musk has increasingly been signaling his support for Reform, whose policies include drastically reducing immigration, slashing taxes and dropping net zero climate policies.
Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, said he didn’t know if or when Musk will make a donation when asked in an interview on Wednesday. “Let’s wait and see,” the former businessman told Sky News. “The reality is he has indicated very strong support for Reform. He recognizes that the UK economy is in a terrible state. He’s got significant business interests here with regard to Starlink, X, Tesla. He wants Britain to do well.”
Though Farage’s party only won a handful of seats at the general election in July — hampered by Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system which disadvantages minor parties — Farage has promised a “political revolution” at the next national vote in 2029 and is hoping to make major gains at local elections in May. His party has built a sense of momentum this year after it secured 14.3% of the national vote share and has then been buoyed by the stuttering start of Starmer’s administration.
Farage has sought to portray himself as a statesmanlike conduit to the incoming Trump administration, saying in his statement that he’d known Vance for 14 years and considered him a friend, adding that he had known a “large number” of the future US cabinet for many years also.
Domestically, the Reform leader has been lifted by a series of defections from the Tories, including that of Candy last week. A former donor to the Conservatives, Candy said he would raise tens of millions of pounds for Reform and will donate a seven-figure sum himself.
The Telegraph has reported Musk is considering giving as much as $100 million to Reform, without saying how it obtained the information. Such a donation would be the largest ever to a UK political party.
After their meeting at Mar-a-Lago, Farage said on Musk’s X platform: ‘Britain Needs Reform.’ Musk replied to the post with: ‘Absolutely.’
(Updates with comment from Reform’s Tice in fourth paragraph)
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