Humza Yousaf to stand down and warns over Elon Musk’s UK election threat
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Scotland’s former first minister to quit frontline politics and says alarm bells should be ringing over potential Musk interference. Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s former first minister, has announced he is to quit frontline politics at the next Scottish elections as he criticised Elon Musk’s interference in the US election and his potential role in the next UK election.
Yousaf, 39, who last year became the first Asian and first Muslim to lead a European government, has been sitting as a backbencher since resigning as first minister in April over a crisis with his erstwhile partners in the Scottish Greens. In a letter to his constituency party in Glasgow Pollok, Yousaf said he would have been an MSP for 15 years when the Holyrood elections took place in May 2026, and hoped his achievements would inspire young people “of any background” to take up public service.
His decision to step down as an MSP may increase speculation on the future of his predecessor, Nicola Sturgeon, at Holyrood. Sturgeon has confirmed she plans to put in nomination papers for the 2026 election but has said she has not decided whether to stand for reelection. Many observers expect her to quit rather than remain on the backbenches.
In an interview with the journalist Mehdi Hasan, Yousaf said alarm bells ought to be ringing “right up and down” British politics about the threat posed by Musk, given his reported plans to bankroll the far right through Reform UK. Yousaf, who has clashed with Musk several times on the US billionaire’s social media platform X, said Musk “amplified disinformation” that “undoubtedly lit the fuse for some of the race riots that we saw in Southport in the summer”.
