Reeves Laughs Off Elon Musk’s Trolling of World Leaders

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves joked about Elon Musk’s online “trolling” of world leaders, in a break from the UK government’s careful efforts to avoid responding to frequent criticism from the close Trump ally.

Author of the article:

Bloomberg News

Alex Morales

Published Jan 22, 2025  •  2 minute read

Rachel Reeves, left, at Bloomberg House during the World Economic Forum in Davos, on Jan. 22. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg Photo by Chris Ratcliffe /Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) — Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves joked about Elon Musk’s online “trolling” of world leaders, in a break from the UK government’s careful efforts to avoid responding to frequent criticism from the close Trump ally.  

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Britain’s finance minister was discussing the use of technology “to cut out some of the costs in the back-office functions of government,” during an on-stage interview with Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. By cutting costs, she said, the government would be able to do less on tax, provide better public services and invest more in capital project.

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But Reeves rejected the analogy when asked whether the UK was going down the same road as Musk, the Tesla boss who US President Donald Trump has installed in an advisory role atop his administration’s new Department of Government Efficiency.

“Well, look, we want to root out waste in government spending,” Reeves replied, with a laugh. “I think maybe the comparison might end there. I’m not going to go troll presidents around the world.”

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been — alongside the leaders of Germany, Canada and other US allies — a repeated target of the world’s richest man’s attacks on his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. Reeves’ remarks represent the closest thing a senior UK Cabinet minister has come to criticizing Musk, as Labour tries to avoid straining relations with the US president. 

During a wave of anti-immigrant riots in Britain last year, Musk posted that “civil war is inevitable,” before accusing Labour of suppressing freedom of speech after far-right rioters were jailed following the disorder. This month, he unleashed a fresh volley of posts criticizing the UK government’s decision not to call a national inquiry into historic cases of child grooming, questioning Starmer’s actions in his past role as director of public prosecutions, and calling a junior minister, Jess Phillips a “rape genocide apologist.”

Starmer has sought to avoid commenting on the billionaire’s posts, but the attack on Phillips — a minister whose career before politics involved helping women who were victims of domestic violence — and the threats she received as a result, prompted him to say that a “line had been crossed.”

—With assistance from Ailbhe Rea and Julian Harris.

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