Elon Musk declaring British people ‘Hobbits’ sparks backlash

Elon Musk has sparked backlash following remarks he made where he described British people as ‘Hobbits,’ and shared misinformation about violence in the country.

Newsweek has contacted X’s press department via email for comment.

Why It Matters

Through 2024 and 2025, anti-immigration and Islamophobic sentiment has risen in Britain, and the country has witnessed significant violence, in part in relation to anti-immigration marches, demonstrations and riots.

In 2024, police in the United Kingdom warned that violence against women in England and Wales had reached “epidemic” levels.

Musk was a pivotal player in the 2024 U.S. election, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to get Donald Trump elected. The SpaceX founder now appears to have set his sights across the Atlantic on Europe and the U.K., prompting accusations of attempted election influence in Germany.

His comments about Hobbits are the latest in a series of remarks he has made on social media about Britain, with critics across the political spectrum accusing him of stirring up hatred and inciting violence.

What To Know

“Lovely small towns in England, Scotland, Ireland, they’ve been like, living their lives quietly. They’re like Hobbits, frankly,” Musk said, during an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, in a reference to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

People in the U.K. have flocked to social media to reject this characterization. But beyond this, they have shared concerns about the misinformation shared by Musk during the podcast episode.

Musk says, “One day, 1,000 people show up in your village of 500, I don’t know where. And start raping the kids. This has now happened; God knows how many times in Britain.”

There are no credible sources, evidence, or documented cases of this happening in Britain.

Podcaster Alasdair Campbell, known for once being the press secretary to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, shared the clip of Musk on X and wrote, “He is sick. And dangerous.”

Migration debate

Anti-immigration sentiment has been on the rise in the U.K. and is something that people have shared concerns about online.

An October poll from YouGov, commissioned by the campaign group Best for Britain, found that 26 percent of people said immigration and asylum was one of the three most important issues facing their country.

Protests and demonstrations linked to immigration, though, often descend into disorder and violence.

Musk has been criticized for weighing in on these protests, and for his support for far-right activist Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, on whose march last month he delivered a speech via video link.

Yaxley-Lennon has a lengthy criminal history and has served five prison terms between 2005 and 2025. In 2013, he illegally entered the United States using a friend’s passport.

Violence against women

An issue pertaining to sexual violence in the U.K. that has made its way into international news, thanks in part to Musk himself repeatedly posting about it, is a scandal in Britain involving the sexual exploitation of underage girls.

The scandal was first exposed more than 20 years ago, in 2003, but has been the subject of debate and inquiry in the two decades that have followed.

It centers on high-profile cases where groups of men, predominantly of Pakistani descent, were convicted of the sexual abuse and rape of predominantly young white girls, in towns including Rotherham and Rochdale in the North of England.

A full national inquiry into grooming gangs in England and Wales was announced by the U.K.’s Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, in June 2025, after perceived slowness by authorities in implementing the recommendations of previous inquiries.

In a report released in 2024 by the National Police Chiefs’ Council, police estimated that one in every 12 women will be a victim of violence against women every year.

Statistics from the nonprofit Rape Crisis for England and Wales show that 1 in 4 women have been raped or sexually assaulted since the age of 16. Rape Crisis also reported that there were 71,227 rapes recorded by police in 2024. By the end of 2024, charges had been brought in 2.7 percent of these cases, with conviction rates likely being lower still. The majority of sexual violence survivors (5 in 6) in England and Wales don’t report it to the police.

In England and Wales, 1 in 2 rapes against women are carried out by their partner or ex-partner, and 6 in 7 rapes against women are carried out by someone they know.

What People Are Saying

Dara O Briain, an Irish comedian, wrote on X: “This is genuinely insane. I mean, just worryingly divorced from any reality. How desperate are people to believe this nonsense?”

Elon Musk, in a post on X, the platform he owns: “When Tolkien wrote about the hobbits, he was referring to the gentlefolk of the English shires, who don’t realize the horrors that take place far away. They were able to live their lives in peace and tranquility, but only because they were protected by the hard men of Gondor. What happened to the nice man who was brutally murdered while walking his dog will happen to all of England if the tide of illegal immigration is not turned. It is time for the English to ally with the hard men, like Tommy Robinson, and fight for their survival or they shall surely all perish.”

Liz Webster, founder of Save British Farming, an organization that represents British farmers in a post on X viewed 6.5 million times: “I actually live in a small English village. It’s total codswallop what @elonmusk is saying. We’re not “hobbits under siege” we’re ordinary people—how rude to patronise us like this. It’s fear-mongering dressed up as folklore.”

Social media user @esjesjesj in a post on X viewed over 40,000 times: “Besides how disgustingly off putting his personality is, this is such an infantile analysis. ‘English people are like the naive race in the fantasy series I love.’ He’s just not close to a serious thinker, which is why he finds Joe Rogan stimulating.”

What’s Next

With political tensions high, fallout of this nature online like is likely to continue.