Makerfield: The first real test of Musk’s political ecosystem.

By Gareth Morgan – Executive Director

For my sins I spend a lot of time on X (the artist formerly known as Twitter). It is my job to wade through the foaming outrage and try to pick out the voices and issues that attract engagement. Bluesky is probably closer to my politics, but X is where I hold my breath and plunge in.

Recently Keir Starmer accused Elon Musk of helping to inflame division in British politics after posting more than 100 times about UK politics in the space of a few days.

There is plenty of debate about whether Musk is right or wrong, but I think that’s the less interesting question.

The more interesting one is why a single individual now has such an outsized ability to shape political debate in a country where he doesn’t vote, doesn’t stand for office and doesn’t live.

Because the real story isn’t just what Musk is saying.

It’s what he has built.

Was this ever really about content moderation?

When Musk bought Twitter, most people assumed the battle would be over content moderation and winding back the perceived overreach that had happened during Covid.

Blue ticks. Bans. Community Notes. Free speech. Who could say what, and who got kicked off.

That debate certainly happened.

But I increasingly think we were looking in the wrong place.

The bigger change wasn’t the rules, it was the people.

Musk didn’t just change how the platform operates. He changed who gets heard.

Every platform rewards something

Every social media platform develops its own culture.

LinkedIn rewards expertise.

TikTok rewards entertainment.

Instagram rewards things that look good.

Old Twitter rewarded journalists, wit and the ability to be first.

X increasingly rewards conflict.

The people who thrive are often those who can turn an issue into a battle. Those who can frame events as ordinary people versus elites. Freedom versus control. Truth versus censorship.

Because conflict creates engagement.

The result is a platform where confrontation often travels further than consensus.

The owner became the biggest player

Most social media owners are effectively invisible.

The founder of LinkedIn isn’t spending his evenings boosting political commentators.

Mark Zuckerberg isn’t quote-posting campaigners to millions of followers.

Musk is different.

He isn’t simply the owner of the platform, he is one of its most active participants.

A reply from Musk can transform the reach of an account overnight.

His attention has become a form of power.

Which means influence on X is no longer determined solely by what users find interesting.

It is also shaped by what captures the attention of the platform’s most powerful participant.

The rise of a new ecosystem

Spend enough time on X and you begin to recognise the same cast of characters.

Some are politicians, some are journalists, some are influencers.

Some are simply very online.

But many share a broadly similar worldview.

A deep scepticism of institutions. A belief that elites are self-serving. A conviction that governments, regulators, media organisations and large corporations cannot be trusted.

And a willingness to challenge them.

The platform increasingly rewards those voices.

Not because there is some grand conspiracy.

But because their style of communication aligns perfectly with the incentives of the platform.

Strong opinions. Clear enemies. Moral certainty. Relentless repetition.

They generate attention, and attention is the currency that matters.

Makerfield: The First Real Test

The central question running through all of this has always been whether Musk has changed who gets heard, or whether he has actually changed what people think.

They are not the same thing.

Over the past two years Musk has helped create an ecosystem of commentators, campaigners and political entrepreneurs capable of dominating online debate, driving media attention and making certain issues feel unavoidable.

Few figures have benefited more from that environment than Rupert Lowe.

Since his break with Reform, Lowe has become one of the most visible political voices on X, championed by Musk and amplified by many of the accounts that thrive within the ecosystem Musk has helped create. Restore Britain is perhaps the clearest attempt yet to convert that attention into an electoral movement.

Makerfield was the first meaningful test.

The headline result was straightforward enough. Burnham won.

Traditional politics still mattered. Ground campaigns mattered. Organisation mattered. Party brands mattered.

But beneath that result sat something more interesting.

Restore Britain secured a meaningful share of the vote despite possessing little of the infrastructure traditionally associated with political success. More importantly, many of those votes appear to have come from the same anti-establishment constituency that Reform UK would naturally expect to attract.

Nigel Farage’s reaction in the aftermath was revealing. His frustration appeared directed less at Burnham’s victory than at those voters who had chosen Restore instead.

That matters because it tells us something important about the ecosystem Musk has helped create.

The question was never whether online influence could instantly create a government.

The question was whether it could create a constituency.

Makerfield suggests it can.

Not enough to win. But enough to matter.

Enough to attract supporters. Enough to shape media attention. Enough to influence how established political movements behave.

And perhaps enough to fragment existing coalitions.

Why this matters for organisations

For organisations, the lesson is not that online influence has replaced traditional power.

The loudest voices online rarely represent the majority.

But they can shape the issues stakeholders care about, the questions journalists ask, the pressure politicians feel and the environment in which decisions are made.

That means attention itself has become a strategic factor.

Not because it determines outcomes directly.

But because it increasingly shapes the conditions in which those outcomes are decided.

The lesson from Makerfield is not that Elon Musk has built a machine capable of taking over British politics.

It may be that he has helped create one capable of fragmenting it.

And in an era where influence is increasingly dispersed, that may prove consequential enough.

If you’re navigating a more fragmented and fast-moving political landscape, our team can help you stay ahead. Contact us here.