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Elon Musk has declared war on a campaign group founded by Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, just hours after Donald Trump accused the Labour Party of interfering in the US election in an extraordinary attack.
The tech billionaire accused the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) of “violating US criminal statutes against foreign interference in elections”.
He said he and his team are “going after” the CCDH and their donors after a report from the Disinformation Chronicle newsletter claimed to have uncovered a strategy document from the group which included a plan to “Kill Musk’s Twitter”.
The report also claims the CCDH sought out meetings with Democratic senators in an attempt to lobby against Mr Musk’s ownership of X.
The organisation was founded by Morgan McSweeney, who was appointed as Sir Keir’s chief of staff earlier this month, but he hasn’t been involved since 2020.
On Tuesday, the Trump-Vance campaign filed a complaint with the US Federal Election Commission (FEC) accusing the party of illegal foreign campaign donations.
It came after scores of Labour activists including frontline politicians flew across the Atlantic to help campaign for Kamala Harris’s election on 5 November.
Already sources in the Trump-Vance campaign have suggested that the intervention could be part of wider legal action if they lose to Kamala Harris on 5 November.
One Washington source at a rightwing think tank linked to the Trump campaign told The Independent: “It is an incredibly foolish move on the part of Labour, and hugely damaging to the special relationship.
“I honestly did not think it was possible for any government to be as corrupt and incompetent as the last Tory government, but this Labour government has actually managed to be more incompetent.”
Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s former deputy general assistant in the White House, said: “It is all part of the subversion culture.”
“Whether it is getting Twitter to suppress the Biden laptop story or get 51 spooks lie about it or hide the fact Biden was senile. It’s who they are”, he told The Independent.
Others though are warning the Trump campaign that the tactic could backfire with Nigel Farage previously being a high profile cheerleader on the former President’s campaign trail.
Musk has been locked in a long running feud with the CCDH, with the tech billionaire last year bringing a lawsuit agains the campaign group, seeking to blame it for “tens of millions of dollars” in lost advertising revenue after the nonprofit reported on hate speech and misinformation on X.
But the case was dismissed by a federal judge in March 2024, with a CCDH spokesperson saying: “CCDH’s research held up a mirror to Elon Musk’s increasingly toxic and ugly platform, and rather than do the right thing and tackle the hate and lies disfiguring X, Mr Musk chose instead to sue the mirror.”
It has campaigned for improvements to online safety as well as having previously criticised multiple social media sites including Facebook, Twitter and TikTok.
The CCDH has been contacted for comment.
