Elon Musk knows “absolutely nothing” about protecting women and girls, Jess Phillips has said after the billionaire called her a “rape genocide apologist” and an “evil witch”.
Speaking for the first time since Musk’s flurry of abuse to his 210 million followers on X, Phillips, the safeguarding minister, said the comments had made her more worried about her safety.
In an interview with ITV News, Phillips also defended her decision to refuse a council’s request for a second national inquiry into so-called grooming gangs, saying a local process would achieve real change more quickly.
Phillips’ decision over Oldham council’s request for a national inquiry was the prompt for Musk to take an interest in the issue of the grooming scandal in a series of UK towns and cities, including calling for Keir Starmer to be removed as prime minister.
“It’s ridiculous isn’t it,” Phillips said when asked how she felt about Musk targeting her. “The things that he’s saying are so ridiculous as to initially make me just go, what?
“But then you wake up with the realisation that that’s millions of people he has said that to, and you feel immediately like this is going to turn my world upside down and I have to try and limit for how long that is the case.”
Phillips went on: “The thing that annoys me the most about it is – it takes up so much bandwidth of my time from a man who knows absolutely nothing about the subject he’s talking about, when the only thing I ever want to be doing is being able to use all of my brain power to focus on the hundreds of girls I have supported over the years who have been victims of grooming gangs and what needs to happen to make their lives better.”
Asked if she had been tempted to agree to Oldham’s request for a new national inquiry, Phillips said that was her initial instinct, but that she then decided it was best to follow the model of a localised inquiry that took place in Telford, which reported in 2022.
She called the Telford report “the only one that has ever done anything to actually change the way the council, the local police, the local CPS [Crown Prosecution Service]” operate.
In a swipe at senior Conservatives who have condemned her decision, Phillips said she had been involved in helping victims in Telford before the inquiry, adding: “I wonder how much Chris Philp or Kemi Badenoch have been involved or even read the documents that came out of Telford, or in fact, any of the inquiries that have already happened.”
Phillips said she would “base my decisions on evidence, not on a very rich man in America”.
Asked if the abuse had made her concerned for her safety, Phillips said: “Of course I worry about my safety. And you have to – anyone who has worked in the fields of violence against women and girls. Risk is dynamic and I have to take account of the risks in my life and this is one of them currently.”
In another interview, with Sky News, Phillips was asked what her message to Musk would be, replying: “Just crack on with this getting to Mars. Elon Musk is going to be Elon Musk. I’ve got bigger and more important things to be thinking about.”
