Badenoch downplays prospect of Musk donation to Reform
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Tory leader says she does not believe Tesla and X boss will give Nigel Farage’s party a multimillion-pound sum. Kemi Badenoch has said she does not believe Elon Musk is going to make a multimillion-pound donation to Reform UK, even as the party’s treasurer claimed the US billionaire was now ready to do so.
The Conservative leader also said that it did not matter if Nigel Farage’s party received money from Musk amid speculation that he could donate as much as $100m (£79m) – because she would match it. “I believe in competition so I think that if Elon Musk is giving a competitive party money then that is a challenge for me to make sure I raise the same,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Badenoch was speaking as Reform’s new treasurer, Nick Candy, claimed that the owner of Tesla and X was among several billionaires who were ready to fund the party. Candy has promised “political disruption like we have never seen before” as he claimed to have several other billionaire backers in addition to Elon Musk.
Candy told the Financial Times Reform would raise more funds than “any other political party” for grassroots campaigning, data and polling. However, Badenoch said of Musk, who was pictured meeting Farage and Candy at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida earlier this month: “I do not believe that he is going to give that money, but it doesn’t matter if he does because it is a challenge to make sure that we can raise the same.”.
