UK minister knocks Musk: 'Focus on issues on the other side of the Atlantic'

British public health minister Andrew Gwynne urged Elon Musk to stay out of foreign politics after the tech giant repeatedly criticized the United Kingdom’s governing party in a series of posts on social platform X, which he owns.

“As you rightly point out, Elon Musk is an American citizen and perhaps ought to focus on issues on the other side of the Atlantic,” Gwynne said during a Friday appearance on LBC Radio. 

Gwynne retorted the Tesla CEO’s claims that the U.K.’s Labour Party mishandled sexual assault cases while in power. 

Musk criticized Jess Phillips, the minister of safeguarding, for reportedly denying public inquiry requests into large-scale child sexual assaults allegedly undertaken by Pakistani gangs in Rotherham as revealed in reports from social worker Alexis Jay.

Jay said more than 1,000 minors were targeted between the years of 1997 and 2013. 

A separate study released in 2022 also purports abuse took place in the town of Oldham from 2011 to 2014.

“Look, the grooming issue is a very serious issue. We've already had inquiries into Telford, into Rotherham,” the British minister told listeners.

“We've had a local inquiry commissioned by Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, into the situation here in Greater Manchester, which includes Oldham. We've had the National Child Sexual Exploitation Inquiry in 2022, which the government is seriously considering a long list of recommendations that was made,” Gwynne continued.

He urged Musk to back off of requests for further investigation.

“There comes a point where we don't need more inquiries and had Elon Musk really paid attention to what's been going on in this country, he might have recognized that there've already been inquiries,” he added.

“What we need is justice for the victims, and we need to make sure that the criminal justice system follows up and make sure that these atrocious things are never able to happen again.”

However, Musk has been supportive of requests to send Phillips to prison over the lack of action taken by the British leader. 

“In the UK, serious crimes such as rape require the Crown Prosecution Service’s [CPS] approval for the police to charge suspects. Who was the head of the CPS when rape gangs were allowed to exploit young girls without facing justice? Keir Starmer, 2008-2013,” Musk wrote on X.

“Who is the boss of Jess Phillips right now? Keir Stamer. The real reason she’s refusing to investigate the rape gangs is that it would obviously lead to the blaming of Keir Starmer (head of the CPS at the time),” he added.

Musk also reposted articles from The Telegraph and other outlets that bolstered claims that the government turned a blind eye to child abuse and gang rapes across Britain.

The tech giant has become increasingly vocal on pressing foreign matters in recent weeks ahead of his official appointment to co-lead the "Department of Government Efficiency" in the incoming Trump administration. 

Musk’s comments have sparked backlash while garnering the attention of officials overseas, including Gwynne, who’ve been disillusioned by his assertions that are often made in support of far-right parties.