Trump could be next after angry Elon turns on Nigel

There is an old Asian proverb which goes along the lines of: "He who rides the tiger must beware lest he end up inside."

- DAVID MADDOX

Nigel Farage might be reflecting on that after his spectacular fall-out with the world's richest man on an otherwise quiet Sunday.

Making an ally of X (Twitter) owner Elon Musk with his vast wealth and enormous influence was always going to be too tempting to refuse for a man who, for the first time in his political career, feels like he has a sniff of actually winning power.

The power of a giant social media platform and the possibility of $100m in funds seemed to be a surefire way of getting a shortcut to turning British politics on its head again, after doing it once already with Brexit.

After all, Musk had done exactly that for Farage’s friend and political ally Donald Trump in the recent US elections. What could possibly go wrong?

Well it turns out that the critics of Musk who suggest he might be an egomaniac governed by vague political instincts and a liking for extremists were pretty much on the money.

Even a cursory glance at his increasingly poisonous posts about Keir Starmer and Britain offered early proof of a man who is governed by gut feelings more than rationality when it comes to politics.

And the episode with his support for the far-right Tommy Robinson – a line which Farage rightly will not cross – has led to an extraordinary unravelling of the populist right alliance.