Labour minister Jess Phillips hits back at 'ridiculous' Elon Musk

Labour minister Jess Phillips tonight hit back at Elon Musk for branding her a 'rape genocide apologist' amid the furious political row over grooming gangs.

The controversial billionaire has recently launched a barrage of attacks on senior Labour figures - including Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer - over the issue.

In posts on his X social media site, the businessman has attacked Sir Keir's record on tackling grooming gangs from his time as the director of public prosecutions.

He also blasted Ms Phillips for rejecting a request for the Government to lead a public inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham.

But, in a series of TV interviews this evening, the Home Office minister branded Mr Musk's posts 'ridiculous' and claimed he 'knows absolutely nothing' about the subject.

Ms Phillips also said that 'disinformation' spread by the tech mogul, thought to be the world's richest man, was 'endangering' her.

But she vowed to 'suck it up' and added it was 'nothing' compared to the experiences of abuse victims.

There has been a renewed focus on grooming gangs after the Government declined to commission an inquiry into sexual exploitation in Oldham, insisting it should be locally-led.

Both the Tories and Reform UK have since demanded a fresh national inquiry, but Sir Keir has swiped at politicians 'calling for inquiries because they want to jump on a bandwagon of the far-Right'.

Speaking to ITV News about Mr Musk's comments, which also included calling her an 'evil witch', Ms Phillips said: 'It's ridiculous isn't it? 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 that 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.

'But you know, your immediate, my immediate thought was like just, it's sort of like, what a joke. And then the realisation of what this is probably going to mean for you.'

She added: '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 and to stop what is still happening today.'

Mr Musk is a close ally of US President-elect Donald Trump and has been appointed to lead a new US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as part of the incoming administration in Washington DC.

But Ms Phillips denied Labour's ongoing feud with Mr Musk could harm the Government's hopes of working together with Mr Trump when he takes office later this month.

'What Elon Musk says on Twitter about me, I don't think is in any way linked to the US government,' she said.

Asked if the row with Mr Musk had made her question her future in politics, she added: 'The few days of madness is nothing compared to the decades sat in police stations with girls bleeding from a battering that they've taken from a grooming gang. 

'So I'll put on my big girl pants and just suck it up.'

Ms Phillips said she was 'apoplectic' that the previous Tory government had been 'so slow' to act on the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which reported in 2022.

She also defended not holding a Home Office-led inquiry in Oldham by saying a locally-led inquiry in Telford was 'the only one that has ever done anything'.

'My instinct was to try and get for Oldham what I'd seen in Telford, which was locally led, a locally-led independent inquiry,' she said.

In another interview with BBC Newsnight, Ms Phillips said that 'disinformation' spread by the South African-born businessman was 'endangering' her.

But she added she was 'resigned to the lot in life that you get as a woman who fights violence against women and girls'.