Elon Musk’s father has said Tommy Robinson is “just like Michael Collins” and will “very likely” become British Prime Minister one day. 

The tech billionaire’s father, Errol, shares many of his son’s views and believes Robinson is currently a “political prisoner”. 

In fact, the far-right activist is in prison after he admitted contempt of court, having repeated false claims about a Syrian refugee. 

Robinson also has a number of other criminal convictions - ranging from assault and mortgage fraud to travelling on a false passport. 

Despite this, Mr Musk said he believed Robinson would have a lot of support if he ever stood for election. 

“If you study history, Tommy Robinson is very likely a future Prime Minister of England [sic],” he told The Hard Shoulder. 

“Just like Michael Collins, just like your Éamon de Valera and so on. 

“They were all at one time criminals and became leaders in their country.” 

Michael Collins addressing a crowd in Cork. Picture by: Alamy.com.

Despite this, Mr Musk admitted he was not a fan of Michael Collins - who became Chairman of Ireland’s Provisional Government in 1922, having negotiated independence from Britain. 

“You remember what a scoundrel Michael Collins was?” he asked. 

“The Brits should have killed him right at the beginning, I think, don’t you think so?

“The scoundrel, the rat. The lies he told; remember all the lies he told?” 

A child of Empire

Born in South Africa in 1946, Mr Musk’s mother hailed from Liverpool. 

The family still has relatives in Britain and Elon has spoken about his grandmother in some of his many tweets about England’s grooming gangs. 

My British grandmother, Cora Amelia Robinson, was an important part of my childhood. She was very strict, but also kind and I could always count on her.

She grew up very poor in England during the Great Depression only to be bombed in WW2. To earn money for food, she cleaned…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 7, 2025

“We are equally able to obtain British passports if we wanted,” Mr Musk said. 

“Passports are just for travel; right now [Elon] is one of the people from the English[-speaking] world that has moved out into the world. 

“When we had trouble in the past in our different places - South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, wherever - we always had to turn to England to come and help us. 

“Now it’s perhaps our turn to look at England and see if we can help back.” 

Errol Musk .Picture by: Torbjorn Selander / Expressen / TT code 4912. Alamy.com

Mr Musk also said Irish people are “among the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life” and said he would love to move to “fabulous” Ireland one day. 

“If we could and we had the time, we would go to the bluegrass country that I’ve seen there and we would have a horse training facility,” he said. 

“We would never leave and we would be there every day 24 hours a day for the whole year, every year. 

“It’s so nice. That’s what we would do.” 

Famously, Elon visited Dublin in 2013 to attend the Web Summit and ended up being driven to Coppers nightclub in a “most disgustingly dirty van”.

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Main image: A split of Errol Musk and Michael Collins. Images by: Alamy.com.