"There's a common thread here of people who are out for money and not out for helping ordinary people"
Everyone Hates Elon is the new anti-Elon Musk group grabbing people’s attention with satirical billboards targeting billionaires. Their most viral stunts? Re-branding Tesla as a ‘Swasticar’ after Musk’s infamous salute at Donald Trump’s inauguration. The simple but effective “Elon Musk is a bellend, signed the UK” poster.
The group also displayed banners of Trump with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to ‘welcome’ him during his state visit, and “took over” Venice ahead of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ wedding in June with a banner calling out the billionaire’s tax practices: “If you can rent Venice for your wedding, you can pay more tax.”
The group is the brainchild of three London friends, who were angry about the outsized influence Musk and other billionaires are wielding over democracy and people’s lives. Launched in January this year, their mission was simple: to stop Musk from interfering in UK politics and, more broadly, to “piss billionaires off one small action at a time”. Have they succeeded? One of the founders, Emma, who asks to remain anonymous, citing Musk’s history of legal action against campaigners and whistleblowers, says: “I think we’re pissing them off.”
“What does someone like Elon Musk care about? Probably very little, but he’s got a fragile ego,” she adds.
Evidence certainly suggests that they’re having an impact: Musk wasn’t happy about Tesla boycotts and railed against ‘left-wing activists’ targeting him, and Bezos had to move his wedding to a different venue in Venice due to local protests.
Nigel Farage is on the anti-Musk group’s list of people to target
So far, EHE has focused on US-based billionaires and political figures, now it is setting its sights on Reform and Nigel Farage. The highest earning MP in Parliament and Reform leader Nigel Farage is on Everyone Hates Elon’s list of people to target in the new year.
“Reform and Nigel are definitely on our hit list,” Emma says. While Farage isn’t a billionaire, “he is definitely part of that rich section of society who are out for themselves basically,” she says.
Farage has earned over £1.3 million from second jobs since he was elected in July 2024 and made 10 trips to the US for Trump fundraisers and cryptocurrency conferences.
“Nigel Farage is not hanging around helping the people in Clacton. He’s out doing the GB News show or selling gold for Gold Bullion,” Emma states.
“There’s a common thread here of people that are out for money and not out for helping ordinary people and that’s very much something we would want to target you know.”
In terms of their actions for next year, Emma says “We can’t really go into detail about what they are, but obviously we want to go after kind of cultural moments where people will be talking about these people.”
Everyone Hates Elon’s actions are crowdfunded, with the group raising hundreds of thousands of pounds over the past year to fund their stunts. For example, they raised £30,000 to put up photos of Trump with Epstein. They want to raise more to combat the rise of Reform in the new year.
Charities and left-wing groups failing to tackle Reform
Emma says she thinks the charity sector and other groups are “really failing” to tackle the rise of Reform. “I think people are sadly quite naive and maybe lazy about tackling Reform.”
“You know they are still polling the highest and what are we going to do about it? The right is very organised and I think we’re not really matching up to that at the moment and we need to urgently rethink that.”
The three members of the group worked in campaigning and social justice, and she said one of her main criticisms of charities, trade unions and left-wing groups is that their message often doesn’t cut through.
“I think that the left can be too earnest, too serious, but often, more than anything, boring.”
Left-wing politicians need to communicate more simply
She says left-wing politicians are also guilty of this too. For instance, Emma says Zarah Sultana uses “quite complex language about policies and NATO and whatever else, and actually what people need is to hear simple, clear messages that resonate”.
In her view, one exception of a good, simple communicator in the left is the Green Party’s new leader. “I think that’s why Zack Polanski has actually done quite a good job because he’s speaking in a language people can understand,” she says.
Emma says there is a problem with a lack of “directness” in political conversations in the UK. She points to the 2019 election as an example of the left’s ineffective messaging. Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour had multiple slogans that failed to cut through, “No one remembers them, but everyone remembered ‘Get Brexit Done’,”.
She says the left has “consistently failed” with getting its messaging to reach the masses. “We do need to get better at calling a spade a spade, and speaking like ordinary people do,” she says.
In the new year, that’s exactly what the campaign group will continue to do with their stunts. You can find out more about supporting Everyone Hates Elon’s work here.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
Left Foot Forward doesn't have the backing of big business or billionaires. We rely on the kind and generous support of ordinary people like you.
You can support hard-hitting journalism that holds the right to account, provides a forum for debate among progressives, and covers the stories the rest of the media ignore. Donate today.