Nigel Farage said he did not want to “go to war” with US billionaire Elon Musk who said he should be replaced as Reform UK leader having previously backed him.
Farage said he instead wanted to “mend broken fences” and made clear he would seek to do this when he travels to America for four or five days and Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president later this month.
Musk’s surprise attack on Farage came after the latter refused to back his support for jailed Far Right activist Tommy Robinson.
The call by the boss of X, also known as Twitter, for a new Reform UK leader stunned Mr Farage.
But he told an LBC phone-in on Tuesday: “I have no desire to go to war with Elon Musk and I’m not going to.... I’m a huge admirer of him, I think he’s an heroic figure.”
Asked whether losing his support would weaken Reform UK, Mr Farage said: “Not having Elon’s support would damage us with that younger generation because he kind of makes us look cool, so I’m being frank about that and I am confident that whatever has been said, we can mend. I really think we can.”
He added: “It’s not crucial. I mean look, if I was to embrace, as it looks like I was being urged to do, the sort of violent thuggish people like (Tommy) Robinson, that would do our party immense harm, and probably rightly so.”
Musk, the Tesla boss who is going to co-lead a government efficiency department in Trump’s new administration, had said Farage “doesn’t have what it takes” to lead Reform UK, just weeks after the pair had what the latter described as a “great” meeting in the US.
The tech billionaire’s about turn appeared to be linked to a disagreement over Robinson.
Farage did not back down in his view of the jailed political activist, saying he was “not right for Reform”.
Musk met Farage in December at US President-elect Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
That meeting came amid reports that Musk was considering donating up to 100 million US dollars (£79 million) to Reform UK, though, this was later played down.
Farage has defended the tech tycoon’s attacks on the UK Government over its handling of grooming gangs in a series of posts on X, although he distanced himself from Musk’s support for Robinson, saying he was “not what we need”.
In a post on X on Sunday, Musk said: “The Reform Party needs a new leader. Farage doesn’t have what it takes.”
He then appeared to endorse Rupert Lowe, one of the party’s five MPs, as a replacement.
Robinson - whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon - is serving an 18-month prison sentence for contempt of court by repeating false claims against a Syrian refugee.
Farage said he wanted to educate people in America about the details of what is happening in Britain about grooming gangs, criticism of failures by governments, police and social services to address the scandal, and the legal action against Robinson.
