Editorial: The obvious political risks of getting too close to Elon Musk or Donald Trump

​Only last week this column was noting the fact that Elon Musk, while brilliant, was talking nonsense (‘Public inquiry is needed into grooming gangs scandal and the sexual exploitation of children,’ January 3)

On that occasion we were referring to his ridiculous comment that Jess Phillips should be in jail for not ordering an inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal. The grooming gangs saga, and the way it was almost covered up for fears of accusations of Islamophobia if the Muslim element to some of the gangs was made clear, was awful.

It needs a detailed investigation. Mr Musk was right about that. But by calling for Ms Phillips to be put in prison over that was just as outrageous as Donald Trump’s shameful comment to Hillary Clinton, “you’d in jail” (if he had his way), a low for a TV US presidential debate, in 2016.

Mr Musk is a genius of an inventor. Mr Trump has since emerged as a supremely skilled political campaigner, who has defeated the Washington establishment to win re-election to the White House. But it is one thing to have such gifts, it is another to be a reliable personality.

Since he emerged as a political candidate a decade ago, many people who have got close to Mr Trump politically have either fallen out with him or become estranged from him. Exceptions include utterly sycophantic, and thus discredited, figures.

This is not to say that Mr Musk and Mr Trump are always or even mostly wrong in their political instincts. In fact on many issues they are correct. But the need for some wariness around both is evident in the fact that Mr Musk has already fallen out with many Make America Great Again (MAGA) activists over immigration. And he is now saying that Mr Trump’s big UK supporter, Nigel Farage, should be replaced as leader of Reform.

Will Mr Musk and Mr Trump themselves fall out? Mr Farage chose to get close to them. He too is a talented politician, but hardly deserving of sympathy. See how he humiliated the TUV despite his party’s deal with them.