Elon Musk Raises Concerns Over History of Sexual Crimes in the UK, PM Starmer Responds

Elon Musk raised concerns over thousands of rapes perpetrated against British girls that he feels have not been paid enough attention, prompting media coverage and reactions from British politicians.

For Context: In 2010, five Pakistani men were jailed in the U.K. for sex offenses against girls as young as 12. A 2014 inquiry commissioned by Rotherham, a city of 110,000, found 1,400 girls had been raped in the city. A 2016 investigation by The Mirror (Left bias) claimed up to 1,000 children were sexually abused in Telford, a city of 155,000, since the 1980s.

From the Right: Dominic Green, writing for The Free Press (Lean Right bias), claimed “few in power cared” about the rapes over past decades, but that it changed when “Elon Musk started tweeting.” He wrote, “The scandal is already reshaping British politics… every level of the British system is implicated in the cover-up.”

From the Left: Mark Landler of The New York Times (Lean Left bias), who on January 3 wrote that “Elon Musk has a strange fixation with trolling Britain,” highlighted British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s apparent response to Musk’s interest in the matter. Starmer didn’t mention Musk by name, but said “Those who are spreading lies and misinformation, as far and as wide as possible, are not interested in victims.”

From the Center: An analysis from Financial Times (Center bias) noted Musk claimed “hundreds of thousands” of “little British girls” were targeted, but that “the number of known victims has run into the thousands.” The Times highlighted a 2022 inquiry that found there was not a “cover-up” of the crimes, but that there were multiple safeguarding failures by local agencies.