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Nigel Farage is set to fix his damaged relationship with the world’s richest man with the two expected to meet up at what is being billed as “the biggest inauguration party” in Washington DC being hosted by the Reform UK leader.
Elon Musk will be part of a star studded guest list of 400 from the right of US and UK politics at the party on Friday at the top of the prestigious Hay Adams Hotel in DC.
It is also set to be attended by Donald Trump, many of his family including his sons Donald jr and Barron, leading Republicans as well as the UK’s new ambassador to the US Lord Mandelson, former prime minister Liz Truss and Tory shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel.
Mr Farage will be hosting the event which has been paid for his old Brexiteer allies Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore as well as US businessman Gerry Gunster.
One of the attractions of Mr Musk is the event’s sponsor Automated Analytics which is creating the world’s first artificial intelligence cloud data centre powered by renewable energy windmills of the coast of the Humber.
The scheme has been promoted politically by new Doncaster Labour MP Sally Jameson, who may also be at the event.
But the event will be the first meeting between Mr Farage and Mr Musk since the X social media owner called for him to be replaced as Reform UK leader last weekend. Since then it is understood there have been attempts via Mr Trump’s team to repair relations ahead of the inauguration via back channels.
Mr Musk, who it was claimed had been willing to offer $100 million to Reform, has retweeted approving of some of Mr Farage’s posts and the Reform leader noticeably softened his tone on far right leader Tommy Robinson, who Mr Musk had described as a “political prisoner” over the grooming gangs scandal row.
Since helping Trump win the US election, the Tesla owner has been accused in recent months of trying to be the power behind the throne for a number of right wing parties including Reform but also the far right Alternative for Deuschland in Germany, and Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia party in Italy.
Mr Wigmore, a long time Brexiteer ally of Mr Farage’s, told The Independent: “This is going to be the biggest inauguration party in town. Everybody who is anybody is going to be there including Elon and Nigel.”
Meanwhile, Lord Mandelson’s attendance appears to confirm that he is willing to work with Farage to improve relations between Trump and Keir Starmer’s government. Labour had resisted working with Farage but Mandelson has made it clear he is willing to ignore political differences.
Dame Priti’s attendance could also mark the start of an attempt by the Tories to come to some sort of agreement with Farage and Reform. She infamously once danced with Farage at a Tory conference and has had a good relationship with him as they are both hardline Brexiteers.
It comes as Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice claimed on Times Radio that Musk remains friends with the party despite the fallout from the row a week ago.
Mr Tice said: “The great thing about free speech, I’m a huge fan of the world’s most successful entrepreneur possibly ever. I enjoy Mr Musk’s products.
“I use a Tesla, I use X, and Starlix is also great. But the joy of being friends is you can actually agree to disagree on things.Frankly, life would be pretty dull if we all agreed on everything. So on this particular issue, we just agreed to disagree. And here’s the real positive point. We’re not for sale to anybody at any price.”
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