Reform UK leader Nigel Farage attends a farmers protest in Whitehall, London, March 4, 2025
REFORM’S pro-worker mask has slipped, the TUC said today, after all its MPs joined the Tories in opposing Labour’s employment rights law.
Nigel Farage’s Commons contingent voted against the legislation despite polling showing that its main provisions are highly popular in their own constituencies.
TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “Reform and the Conservatives have shown their true colours once again.
“Instead of voting for common-sense reforms, like banning exploitative zero-hours contracts and day-one access to sick pay, they have voted to deny millions basic protections at work.
“Nigel Farage is not on the side of working people. He’s a political fraud, defying his own constituents to oppose stronger workers’ rights.”
Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Richard Tice claimed there are “thousands” of scientists who agreed with him Pic: PA
Richard Tice also said the scientists who agreed with him were “not a minority”, though his view is contrary to major consensus.
Scientists have spoken out after Reform UK’s deputy leader dismissed scientific consensus on man-made climate as “garbage”.
Richard Tice MP told Sky’s political correspondent Ali Fortescue: “There’s no evidence that man-made CO2 is going to change climate change. Given that it’s gone on for millions of years, it will go on for millions of years.”
Fortescue challenged him with the findings of more than 200 international scientists that humans activities like burning fossil fuels are to blame for the recent hotter climate.
Human influence is “unequivocal”, said the report, which was signed off by all governments, including fossil-fuel-rich Russia, USA and Saudi Arabia.
“No, that’s absolute garbage,” Mr Tice said. “The climate changed for millions of years before man-made CO2.”
Dr George Adamson from King’s College London said the idea that Richard Tice had “discovered something that climate scientists don’t know about is of course preposterous”.
The climate did change for years before humans began burning fossil fuels at scale.
Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Trump boasted about withdrawing from the “one-sided” Paris Agreement, saying, “It was a disaster.” Credit: Zach D. Roberts
Conservative conference featured global right-wing speakers from Liz Truss to JD Vance calling for an end to climate protections.
Just a month into President Donald Trump’s chaotic administration, American and international conservatives swooped into the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside Washington, D.C., in mid-February, and took a knee to the president, non-elected billionaire Elon Musk, and their fossil fuel deregulation agenda.
After numerous speeches heralding the MAGA movement by major figures on the right, including Vice President JD Vance, DOGE chief Elon Musk, ex-Trump aide Steve Bannon, and Speaker of the House Republican Mike Johnson, on the last day of the four-day event, Trump himself spoke to the faithful. Basking in chants of “USA, USA,” Trump boasted about withdrawing from the “one-sided” Paris Agreement, saying, “It was a disaster, it was a disaster.”
“I terminated the Green New Scam,” he went on, referring to the Green New Deal, which was never enacted or proposed as an actual bill. “One of the greatest hoaxes ever played on this country is the Green New Scam. We spent trillions of dollars on this nonsense … It really set back our country.”
In a rambling speech bereft of solid policy or facts, Trump also said he “canceled Joe Biden’s insane electric vehicle mandate, where everybody has to have an electric,” again referring to non-existent legislation. Biden did not mandate people to switch to electric cars; he had progressively stricter pollution standards.
Trump’s final reference to the environment in his speech was that “people can buy any type of car they want, except for hydrogen. The only thing you can’t do is buy a hydrogen-powered car. You know why? They said it really works great, but when it doesn’t work, you never find a body. It’s a bet that’s a bad sign.” As of this publication date, no one has been disintegrated by a hydrogen car explosion. He then ended with his signature dance as the Village People’s “YMCA” blared over the loudspeakers.
Trump dances to the song, “YMCA” at CPAC 2025. Credit: Zach D. Roberts
Trump’s references to fake climate policy was emblematic of this year’s CPAC discussions on the environment. In past years, the conference’s environmental speakers were more “scientific,” with conservative climate denialists showing graphs and data to prove their theories that climate change seemingly does not exist. But with no breakout sessions this year, the gathering was all anti-climate talk and pro-MAGA with zero attempts at science.
Take former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss’s talk on Thursday, Feb. 20, the second day of CPAC. Truss, who had previously served as the UK’s environment secretary, expressed her anger that her move to end the ban on fracking in Great Britain was brought back in 2022 by her predecessor, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Truss was famously only in office for 45 days. “Sadly, I wasn’t in office long enough to actually make [the fracking ban] happen,” she told the conference crowd.
“We have net-zero policies that have decimated our oil and gas industry,” she said. “The net result is we have the highest energy prices in the developed world. And in Britain, we’ve just seen the last steel plant close down last year. We cannot produce our own steel anymore.”
Former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss echoed Trump’s disdain for big government. Credit: Zach D. Roberts
The former Prime Minister, who spent much of her adult life in government, then repeated Trump’s disdain for the “deep state,” saying, “We want to dismantle the British deep state, which is older and more entrenched than the American one.”
“We need a great restoration bill to repeal all of the terrible laws, from the Equality Act to the Climate Change Act, the Human Rights Act to the Constitutional Reform Act,” she said. “We need to eradicate judicial activism in Britain and restore parliamentary sovereignty.”
CPAC has expanded its international influence and speakers over the last few years with annual South Korea and Hungary meetings. Leader of the Reform UK party Nigel Farage, who also attended, has spoken at the conference for many years, and is considered a bit of a celebrity here.
Wright Vows to Axe Regulations
On the first day of the conference, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s speech pushed Trump’s “drill baby drill and build baby build” philosophy. The former fracking CEO of Liberty Energy promised that his and Trump’s other cabinet departments would be “working feverishly” to remove regulations to pave the way for higher energy production. He also emphasized removing restrictions the Biden Administration put on fossil fuel appliances like gas stoves.
Last year, gas stoves were the new “plastic straws” in the world of right-wing media as conservative news outlets claimed the Democratic administration was looking to ban them fully, which it was not.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright talked about the amount of energy needed for AI data centers. Credit: Zach D. Roberts
Economic competition with China has been a running theme through many of the speeches at CPAC for years. But now, with the massively successful launch of DeepSeek, finding energy for artificial intelligence operations is a priority. Wright’s speech emphasized the energy use that AI technology will demand and claimed that it will lead to “enormous benefits” in drug discovery and national security. “We want China to lead the way in AI? I would feel naked if their AI was better than ours,” he said.
AI and tech companies donated huge amounts to the Trump campaign, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. That investment has paid off as the closure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Trump’s changes at the FTC and FCC to reign in their powers will benefit the tech world immensely. Trump has even rescinded Biden’s executive order warning people about AI.
Dunleavy’s Political Ambitions
One of Trump’s first executive orders demanded the nation “unleash Alaska’s extraordinary resource potential.”Environmental rights organization, EarthJustice replied, “While the Trump administration’s plans were made clear in the orders, it’s important to note that the vast bulk of the actions cannot be made unilaterally by the President without cooperation from government agencies, Congress, or other authorities.”
Running throughout CPAC on the big screens in the main ballroom amounted to campaign ads for Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who wants to leave his job in the 49th state. Called the “worst-kept-secret,” Dunleavy had been auditioning for a gig in the Trump administration, but now that that doesn’t seem to be happening, he’s likely looking at running for Senator against one of his fellow Republicans, Dan Sullivan, who is up for reelection in 2026, or Lisa Murkowski, who is up in 2028. The ad, which features Trump prominently, has the President speaking about how he will work with Dunleavy to provide “energy to Alaska and allies around the world.”
A campaign ad screened at CPAC for Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s Senate campaign. Credit: Zach D. Roberts
From the CPAC stage, Gov. Dunleavy told the audience that Trump “sees us [Alaska] as a solution to many of America’s problems.” A $44 billion liquified natural gas pipeline project that both Trump and Dunleavy are pushing is oddly not planned to send energy to the lower 48, but to Asian customers. Japan has been trying to curry favor with Trump for access since that could help the nation diversify supplies away from riskier sources like Russia.
Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum
President Trump has commanded the new Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, to find new ways to exploit public lands. The goal, Burgum explained in his CPAC speech, is to “sell to our friends and allies.” He claims that doing so will “end our trade deficits” and “the wars abroad.” Ultimately, Burgum claims this work will set up President Trump to “win the Nobel Prize.”
Burgam, a billionaire former two-term governor of North Dakota and a software developer, has extensive ties to the oil and gas industry, including hundreds of thousands in investments. After a brief run for President in 2024, Burgam endorsed Trump.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum aims to exploit public lands to “sell to our friends and allies.” Credit: Zach D. Roberts
Burgam will also chair the newly founded National Energy Dominance Council with Energy Secretary Chris Wright as vice chair. The council “will advise President Trump on strategies to achieve energy dominance by improving the processes for permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, and transportation across all forms of American energy.” It will also cut “red tape” through axing regulations.
CFACT Was the Lone Climate Group in Hall
Down in the exhibit hall, the tables that many years ago mainly saw small government groups were filled with culture warriors – groups opposed to abortion, trans rights, and other historically underrepresented communities. This year, the lone group in the hall focusing on climate was CFACT, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, a “conservative libertarian think tank.”
Nate Meyers, CFACT’s national field coordinator was clear on the group’s approach to the “science” of climate change –“It’s not settled at all,” he said. Meyers verbally added, “™”[trade mark]] as he said the words “climate change” when speaking to DeSmog.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/QKjLqdrm3N0?feature=oembedCFACT’s Nate Myers speaks with DeSmog. Credit: Zach D. Roberts
Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow is CFACT’s college campus organization, which, according to Myers, has 32 campus groups. Like Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, CFACT aims to capture the minds of young people, according to Myers., “College campuses are so totally captured by the left. Statistically, you’re more likely to be instructed by a Marxist than you are a Republican,” he said.
“That demonstrates a huge need for alternative viewpoints on college campuses,” he added. “And it’s kind of a cliche thing to say, but the children and young people are our future.”
When asked who funds CFACT, Myers mentioned small donations and occasional larger direct donations, emphasizing the grassroots nature of the organization. When DeSmogasked if they received backing from Koch Inc., like many similar climate-denying groups, Myers demurred, saying he wasn’t a fan of Koch.) In the past, CFACT has received large sums from Koch’s Donors Trust, along with all the other usual suspects of right-wing climate denying donors.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright speaking at the 2025 Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference. Credit: ARC / YouTube
The Trump appointee and fossil fuel executive called the transition to renewable energy “lunacy” at an event packed with climate science deniers.
Donald Trump’s new energy secretary has today vowed to “get out of the way” of coal, oil and gas, and called the UK’s 2050 net zero target “a sinister goal” that would “impoverish” people.
Chris Wright, an oil and gas industry executive appointed by U.S. President Trump, was speaking via video link at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in London, a right-wing forum run by fierce opponents of climate policies.
He also downplayed the threat from extreme weather, and suggested that climate action is part of a plot to “grow government power” and “shrink human freedom”.
The ARC conference, taking place this week at the ExCel centre in east London, includes speeches by Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, Republican Party Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, and Canadian psychologist and ARC founder Jordan Peterson.
As DeSmog revealed on Monday, a leaked guest list for the event includes executives from oil and gas giants, including BP, Koch Inc., Valero Energy, and Energy Transfer.
Until his appointment, Wright was the CEO of the fracking services company Liberty Energy. According to its 2023 tax filing, Wright was also a director of the Western Energy Alliance (WEA), a trade group representing more than 300 companies in the oil and gas industry. WEA has historically lobbied against oil and gas industry restrictions.
In a video posted to LinkedIn in January 2023, Wright said, “There is no climate crisis”.
‘Sinister Agenda’
Wright told the ARC audience today that he wanted to “increase the supply of affordable, reliable energy” by lifting the pause on natural gas and scrapping regulations on nuclear energy.
When asked about coal, oil and gas, he said: “Oh absolutely. The world today runs on coal oil and gas, and it’s been a tremendous success. I should have said number one [of his plan] is get out of the way of the production, export and enhancement of our volumes of coal, oil and gas.”
The energy secretary also attacked the UK’s legally-binding target of cutting emissions to net zero by 2050.
“Net zero 2050 is a sinister goal”, he said. “It’s a terrible goal. It’s both unachievable by any practical means, but the aggressive pursuit of it – and you’re sitting in a country that has aggressively pursued this goal – has not delivered any benefits, but it’s delivered tremendous cost.”
He added: “This is not energy transition, this is lunacy. This is impoverishing your own citizens in a delusion that this is somehow gonna make the world a better place. It’s not.”
The world’s foremost climate science body, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has stated that – without achieving net zero by 2050 and limiting warming to 1.5C – the world will struggle to contain the worst effects of climate change. These include droughts, flooding, poverty, and mass displacement.
Wright went on to claim that “We’re scaring children all the time with stories of extreme weather” when “deaths from extreme weather have plummeted for 100 years”.
Better forecasting and preparation have cut extreme weather deaths over this period, but the number and intensity of extreme weather events have increased, and they continue to be disproportionately fatal in the least developed countries.
The energy secretary also claimed that “climate-obsessed people […] know very little about the climate data”, before alluding to the conspiracy theory that climate change is being used to impose a green tyranny.
“I think the agenda might be different here than climate change”, he said. “It’s certainly been a powerful tool used to grow government power, top down control, and shrink human freedom. This is sinister.”
Oil and Gas at ARC
Senior representatives from several major fossil fuel producers will be at the ARC event, according to a leaked list of attendees viewed by DeSmog.
Billed as an effort to “re-lay the foundations of civilization,” the conference will feature panels about energy and environment that are filled with prominent deniers of the climate crisis.
That includes Vivek Ramaswamy, a former contender for the U.S. Republican presidential nomination, who has referred to the “climate agenda” as a “hoax,” as well as Nigel Farage, who has called for the UK’s 2050 net zero emissions policies to be “scrapped” entirely.
They will be joined by representatives of prominent climate denial organizations including the CO2 Coalition, and libertarian anti-climate think tanks such as the Cato Institute.
“I had a chance to sit down one-on-one with Chris in 2022 in his Denver office,” claimed Gregory Wrightstone, executive director of the CO2 Coalition, in a newsletter in late 2024.
Wrightstone “was impressed with his [Wright’s] knowledge and views on energy philosophy, which aligned closely with those of the CO2 Coalition.”
“The key takeaway is that he’s a big supporter of the continuing use of fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and natural gas,” Wrightstone said.
ARC is backed by the UAE-based investment firm Legatum Group and British hedge fund millionaire Paul Marshall, who together own the right-wing broadcaster GB News. Marshall provided £1 million in funding to ARC in 2023, which is run by Conservative peer and UK government advisor Baroness Philippa Stroud.
Speaking to the Financial Times ahead of the conference, Marshall claimed that Britain is “going bust” in its pursuit of net zero. As revealed by DeSmog, Paul Marshall’s hedge fund held £1.8 million worth of shares in fossil fuel companies – including in oil and gas giants Chevron, Shell, and Equinor – as of June 2023. One of Marshall Wace’s biggest investors, U.S. private equity firm KKR, also has a large fossil fuel portfolio, including 188 assets in oil, gas, and coal.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
“I think you really are the best hope for Germany,” Elon Musk told the thousands attending the far-right Alternative for Germany party’s rally on January 25. France 24 English/YouTube
The tech billionaire is invigorating groups in the U.S. and Europe aiming to sabotage climate action, a DeSmog media analysis shows.
In December, a Chicago-based organization called the Heartland Institute, which for decades has attempted to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change, devoted an episode of its daily podcast to Elon Musk.
As recently as 2022, Heartland figures had ridiculed the Tesla CEO as a member of the “billionaire climate elite” based on Musk’s claim that as a top manufacturer of electric vehicles, his company was “doing the most to solve climate change.”
But perhaps, the podcast guests speculated, Musk was finally “abandoning the climate cult.”
The episode was recorded after Musk had given upwards of $277 million to get Donald Trump elected president, argued that “we don’t need to rush” on addressing climate change, and vowed to cut $2 trillion of federal government spending. One guest on the show was cautiously optimistic, saying: “I’m coming around on Musk.”
Heartland, which didn’t respond to a request for comment, isn’t the only anti-climate group embracing Musk these days.
DeSmog journalists in the European Union, the UK and the United States reviewed public materials from prominent climate deniers referencing Musk over recent months. Taken as a whole, these podcasts, opinion pieces, social media posts, newsletters, YouTube videos, and interviews with legacy media reveal an unmistakable trend: Musk’s public embrace of right-wing populists is invigorating a transatlantic movement aiming to spread doubt about the reality of climate change and sabotage action on the crisis.
His interventions ahead of Germany’s elections on Sunday have energized the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which says that climate policy “threatens our freedom,” a January poll suggests.
His courtship, along with Trump, of hardline leaders in Europe threatens to torpedo hopes of progressive climate action by the EU, think tanks warn.
And in the U.S., Musk’s ongoing war against the federal bureaucracy “erodes our collective ability to adapt to climate impacts,” Amanda Fencl, director of climate science for the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists, has warned.
Some longtime climate deniers are thrilled, however, recognising that even a brief endorsement from Musk to his 217.9 million followers on X — the social media platform formerly called Twitter, which he bought in 2022 — can confer instant visibility and excitement.
“We welcome Elon Musk into the climate red pill group,” Climate Depot executive director Marc Moranostated in December, using a phrase popular among Trump supporters that refers to rejecting liberal viewpoints.
Musk, contacted via Tesla, did not respond to a detailed list of questions about his shifting climate views.
‘Windmills of Shame’
When Germans vote for a new government on Sunday, the EU’s most populous country is widely predicted to shift to the right. Leading the polls at about 29 percent of voters is the centre-right Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, which intends to prioritise economic growth over accelerated climate measures endorsed by the ruling Greens and Social Democrats, or SPD.
Less certain is the influence that the surging far-right AfD will have on the next German government. On X, Musk has openly endorsed and platformed the party, which wants to ditch Germany’s climate commitments.
As migration and economic stagnation dominate German politics, the AfD is now polling close to 21 percent — potentially doubling the 10 percent of votes it won in the last national elections in 2021. The party states that the level of human contribution to global warming is “not scientifically proven,” and opposes state support for renewable energy and electrification of heat and transport, while advocating for Germany’s gas and coal power sectors.
The CDU says that it will not form a coalition government involving the AfD, and maintains its commitment to Germany’s 2045 net-zero emissions target. But despite its opposition status, the AfD is already shaping national political discourse — and even decision-making.
While the CDU and Germany’s other mainstream parties have traditionally refused to vote with the AfD due to its extreme stances on immigration and Germany’s Nazi past, the CDU broke this so-called “firewall” last month by voting with the AfD on a resolution to restrict migration.
Musk has sided with the AfD on its hard-line immigration stance and nationalist messaging. In December, Musk openly endorsed the party, shocking liberal Germans by writing on X that “only AfD can save Germany.” He went on to join a 9 January livestream with the AfD co-leader Alice Weidel, who has attracted controversy for Islamaphobic remarks, such as in a 2018 Bundestag speech when she said “burqas, headscarf girls, publicly-supported knifemen, and other ‘good-for-nothings’ will not secure our prosperity, economic growth, and the social state.”
In terms of climate policy, Weidel has suggested that if the AfD takes power in Germany, it could dismantle wind turbines, recently calling them “windmills of shame,” The wind sector produced a third of the country’s electricity last year.
During their conversation, both Musk and Weidel expressed support for nuclear power — with Musk also saying he was a “big fan” of solar energy — and Weidel stating that Germany’s CO2 footprint was “obnoxiously very very high.” Both steered clear of the AfD’s official climate-denialist party platform.
Then, less than two weeks later, Musk sparked a global furore by raising his arm to the crowd at Trump’s January 20 inauguration in a gesture that many likened to a Nazi salute. The Amadeu Antonio Stiftung, a German organisation which advocates against right-wing extremism and anti-Semitism, saw no ambivalence in Musk’s move, describing it as a “Hitler salute.” Musk responded to the outpouring of criticism by posting on X: “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.”
Five days after Trump was sworn-in, Musk ramped up his support for the AfD by addressing a party rally via videolink. He urged supporters to “take pride” in being German over “some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything”, and told them that there’s “too much of a focus on past guilt” — remarks condemned by Polish prime minister Donald Tusk.
YouTube Influencer
Musk had previously enjoyed support from Germany’s centrist parties. When Tesla opened a multi-billion dollar electric car factory in the State of Brandenburg in 2022, the move was billed as a boost to both the country’s manufacturing sector and climate credentials. But during his January livestream with Weidel, Musk expressed his disdain for the bureaucratic procedures needed to build the Tesla factory, which he said amounted to “25,000 pages”.
Musk’s public support for the AfD can be traced back to his interactions with Naomi Seibt, a 24-year-old German influencer who built a sizeable social media following attacking “climate alarmism” and cultivating a brand as the anti-green doppelganger of Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. Her rise to prominence was aided by the Heartland Institute, which featured her in a YouTube video it published in February 2020. Seibt has since told Reuters that the organisation had paid her $4,000 a month for three months as a “scholarship.” (Seibt no longer appears to be affiliated with the group).
German influencer Naomi Seibt appears on the Heartland Institute’s YouTube channel on February 11, 2020. Credit: Heartland Institute/YouTube
When Seibt posted on X last June that she’d voted for the AfD in the EU elections, which saw the formerly fringe party rise to 16 percent of the total vote — its best-ever result — Musk began sending her private messages asking for more information, according to Seibt. “And then he started following me,” Seibt told the BBC, noting that “it took him many months to decide to support the AfD.”
Musk’s backing could boost a party that’s heavily critical of the country’s decarbonization efforts. A January poll of German voters from the U.S.-based Democracy Institute think tank suggested that 28 percent of respondents say they are “more likely” to vote AfD due to Musk’s support, while 23 percent said it made their support “less likely.”
Germany’s center-right and center-left leadership have condemned Musks’s interventions. Friedrich Merz, head of the CDU, told The Wall Street Journal last week that Musk would face consequences for boosting the AfD. Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a member of the centre-left SPD, last month called Musk’s support for European far-right parties “disgusting.”
The new Trump administration is already mirroring the billionaire’s embrace of the AfD. Last week, U.S. Vice-President JD Vance met with Weidel, the AfD co-chief, on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich, while snubbing Scholz.
With the U.S. playing a major role in German trade and security, this budding transatlantic alliance could bode poorly for climate action in Europe’s biggest economy.
Neither Seibt nor the AfD responded to questions.
Courting the European Far-Right
Musk’s electrifying impact on the AfD builds on his years of dabbling in far-right politics in other European countries.
In December 2023, Musk appeared as a guest of honour at an annual convention in Rome hosted by the Brothers of Italy, the right-wing populist party of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who had said earlier that year that “ultra-ecological fanaticism” was an economic threat.
Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s far-right Vox party, also attended the 2023 convention. He had recently predicted that Spanish citizens would hang their current Socialist Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, by his feet, remarks that were so controversial that some Brothers of Italy members asked for his invitation to be withdrawn, the Spanish newspaper El País reported.
But whereas Abascal’s presence threatened to create divisions at the event, “Elon Musk’s case is somewhat different, arousing only enthusiasm and selfie fervor,” noted El País. “The tycoon is nowadays the darling of almost all those on the ultra-right who seek media and economic backing, and a cutting-edge image.”
A month later, in January 2024, Musk again signalled his interest in European politics.
With German farmers protesting the end of government diesel fuel subsidies and a new tax on agricultural vehicles, Anthony Lee, who had stood for the European Parliament as a candidate for Free Voters, a German conservative populist party, gave an interview to right-wing Dutch influencer Eva Vlaardingerbroek. Lee told Vlaardingerbroek that politicians “want our land to build industry, houses. Houses for refugees, whoever, I don’t care what for.”
After Musk reacted to the video on X, writing “Support the farmers!” Lee said in a video message that “I think it’s just awesome that Elon Musk himself tweeted this…This is only possible because we stand together.” The video was viewed over 200,000 times. Lee did not respond to a request for comment.
A year later, Musk was rubbing shoulders at Trump’s inauguration with a who’s-who of right-wing European politicians, including Spain’s Abascal, France’s Éric Zemmour and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, all of whom have questioned the science and urgency of climate change.
Analysts with the independent European Policy Center think tank in Brussels sees the inauguration guestlist as a worrying sign that Trump and Musk are helping strengthen “ideological ties between significant radical forces on both sides of the Atlantic.” They are concerned about the impact a second Trump administration may have on a host of EU-wide initiatives, including a raft of climate reforms known as the European Green Deal.
“The most concerning possibility,” the analysts argue, is “Trump’s probable exploitation of far-right leaders or governments to block EU policies or advance his agenda.”
Musk’s Shift to ‘Climate Skeptic’
For years, Musk enjoyed a reputation as a crusading green energy entrepreneur on a mission to render the internal combustion engine obsolete, celebrated by climate activists and cleantech investors alike — despite growing signs of his right-ward political leanings. As recently as last August, the online news outlet E&E News ran a story speculating that “Musk might be the only person Trump listens to on climate.”
But Musk’s politics and business interests seemed to decisively converge during a 2024 meeting of Tesla executives in Palo Alto, California, where he shelved plans to develop a more budget-friendly compact car that could be marketed to lower-income customers around the world, according to a report in the Washington Post. This had previously been a key part of Tesla’s plan to “accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.”
Instead, Musk approved a plan worth billions of dollars to purchase computer chips that could improve Tesla’s luxury vehicles, the Washington Post report said. Musk had shifted from calling for “a popular uprising” against the fossil fuel industry in 2016 to stating that there were more important global problems to address.
In a livestream with Trump last year, Musk stated that “we don’t need to rush” in fixing climate change.
This also happens to be the message of Bjørn Lomborg, a longtime Danish climate crisis denier (and apparent “friend” of Trump administration energy secretary Chris Wright) whose 2023 book Best Things First argued that there were more important global priorities to address than climate change. According to a recent edition of Lomborg’s newsletter, the Canadian conservative influencer Jordan Peterson shared a copy of Lomborg’s book with Musk in 2024.
Within U.S. denial networks, some leaders link Musk’s shift to the flourishing of anti-climate messages on Twitter after the billionaire purchased the platform, and renamed it X. “I mean, there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of climate skeptics on X/Twitter, and they’re constantly posting content that we put out here,” the Heartland Institute’s Anthony Watts argued on the group’s podcast. “Musk has had to have seen some of this stuff.”
Musk’s former critics in climate denial circles now see him as the best bet for implementing their most extreme ideas. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency has been attempting to shut down key climate-related agencies like the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID.
On the website of the conservative group CFACT, prominent denier Paul Dreissen — who previously accused Musk of holding “sanctimonious” views on “the alleged climate crisis” — has offered policy suggestions to the billionaire as he wages war on the federal bureaucracy: End subsidies for renewable energy; terminate funding for environmental and climate justice programs; and require applicants for climate research funding to “provide computer codes and analyses so that reviewers can view and evaluate their work.”
Parts of Musk’s plan seem to rely on two recent, pro-industry Supreme Court decisions to unwind regulatory authority long held by federal agencies — an overarching goal of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 initiative, retooled with Musk’s Silicon Valley spin.
If successful, these cuts will dismantle decades of clean air and water protections, and hamstring the country’s ability to respond proactively to the worsening climate crisis, said Fencl, the director of climate science at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida in October 2024, but caused deadly and destructive flooding hundreds of miles from the coast due to extreme rain. At least 219 people died, and the damages are estimated at $78.7 billion. Credit: PBS NewsHour/YouTube.
“Our infrastructure systems are not going to withstand the climate impacts we’re expecting, and taking away the government’s spending in these spaces really erodes our collective ability to adapt to climate impacts,” Fencl said.
Raising the UK’s Political Temperature
Since throwing his fortune and social media influence behind Trump, Musk has teased the possibility of attempting a similar campaign in the UK.
In December, Musk met with Reform UK leader Farage, who also co-founded and formerly led the Brexit Party, at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
The two were in talks about Musk offering a £100 million (over $125 million) donation to Reform, The Times of London reported. Farage has said he finds it “extraordinary that people call carbon dioxide a pollutant, and Reform UK’s latest party manifesto recycles a long-debunked claim that “scientists disagree as to how much” human activity is causing climate change. So such a donation would have been a major investment by Musk in transatlantic climate denial.
Then, in January, Musk used X to call for the release of Tommy Robinson, a far-right British influencer serving an 18-month contempt of court sentence for making false accusations about a Syrian schoolboy. When Farage rejected his calls to join forces with Robinson, Musk tweeted that, “the Reform Party needs a new leader. Farage doesn’t have what it takes.”
Farage was not sufficiently swayed by Musk’s comments to support Robinson’s return, although he struck a conciliatory note by saying the tech mogul didn’t know “the full story” about the provocateur’s criminal past. By the end of January, Farage was signalling to the press that his rift with Musk was over, telling The New York Times that the billionaire was still open to donating to Reform UK. “We’ve got very similar goals on some areas, slightly different emphases in others,” Farage said, adding that Musk was sharing valuable information about how Trump won over swing voters during the U.S. election.
Farage is also collaborating with the Heartland Institute, which has claimed credit for working with hard-right parties in Austria and Hungary to attempt to stall the EU’s Nature Restoration Law, which sets targets for restoring damaged ecosystems, as well as other green policies. Farage helped launch the pro-Trump institute’s new UK-Europe branch in December.
Farage’s newly formed Reform UK won just five of the 650 seats in the lower house of parliament in last year’s elections, and was unsuccessful in generating a backlash against the country’s net-zero emissions goal. Nevertheless, the party appears to be pushing the historically weakened Tories to the right on climate change — echoing Farage’s previous strategy to rally support for the 2016 Brexit referendum.
Regardless of how much tangible backing Musk might provide to right-wing figures in the UK, his winning bet on Trump, and assault on federal government spending, has inspired Farage and his allies with a sense of the possible. “There’s a heck of a lot we’ve learned from that we will implement over the next few years,” Farage told The New York Times.
Some European leaders are looking for ways to neutralize Musk’s efforts to sway voters.
In January, as Musk posted false allegations that UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer had let child sex abusers escape justice, France called on the European Commission to take action against Musk and X for election interference. According to The Financial Times, Musk was also investigating how to get Starmer out of office before the country’s next election, and replace his center-left government with right-wingers.
Members of the European Parliament, who are elected representatives of their respective nations, are also criticizing the Commission for failing to use its authority under the EU’s Digital Services Act to investigate and fine Musk and X, as well as other major social media platforms, for spreading disinformation.
Asked about Musk’s tirade during a public event in January, Starmer did not name the billionaire directly in his response. “Those that are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible, they’re not interested in victims,” said Starmer. “They’re interested in themselves.”
Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
