British public opinion hates Elon Musk. He can still influence policy.

While many of Mr. Musk’s posts, especially those related to gangs, originate in the ecosystem of far-right bloggers and activists, they also tempt mainstream politicians looking for a cudgel to use against their opponents. They appeal to editors and broadcasters looking for a good story.

“The British press and broadcasters have kind of rushed to give Elon Musk publicity,” said David Yelland, former editor-in-chief of Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun newspaper. “In the print press, they did it because they are very hostile to Keir Starmer. “This is the plain old prejudice of Fleet Street.”

Claire Enders, a London-based media researcher and founder of the analysis firm Enders, likened Mr Musk to Mr Murdoch, the rebellious media baron from Australia who upended London’s newspaper industry in the 1970s. “We have a new Murdoch,” she said. “He is American, he is a billionaire, and he is close to Trump.”

However, Mr Musk is less interested in seizing control of the British press than in discrediting it. He claims that the media was complicit in covering up abuses against young girls. The fact is that British newspapers from across the political spectrum covered these crimes, if not immediately, then aggressively, as the scale of the abuses became clear in the late 2000s and early 2000s. The Times of London published a Major investigation into the scandaland the slow response by the police in 2011.

“It was on the front page of every newspaper, and it was on the six o’clock news for years,” said Rahim Kassam, who covered the scandal as editor of the British website of the right-wing news outlet Breitbart News. “The idea that there was a media blackout on this, and we needed Elon Musk to expose it, is nonsense.”