Globaltimes 
Elon Musk has weighed in on the war of words between Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage after the fotmer accused the latter of ‘faking’ the number of signed-up members.
Mr Musk, the CEO of X, has put a fact-check alert on Ms Badenoch’s tweets in which she claimed that Reform UK had faked its membership numbers.
She had used a five-part post on X, formerly Twitter, to accuse MrFarage and Reform of bombarding the public with “endless lies, smoke and mirrors” and a counter that was “coded to tick up automatically”.
“Farage doesn’t understand the digital age,” she added. “This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled.”
Farage is now considering legal action against the Tory leader if she fails to apologise for her “intemperate outburst”, after Reform revealed the inner workings of its tracker, saying that it proves his claim that the party now has more members.
On Saturday morning, the Reform leader tagged Ms Badenoch in a post, writing: “When will you apologise to me and the 146,077 other members of Reform UK?”
Since then, her tweets have been hit with a “community note” – a feature written by users of the social media site who sign up to write and rate notes.
The note underneath Badenoch’s tweet now reads: “This claim is false. It’s not a ‘fake ticker’ – the website code clearly shows data being pulled via an API.
“Sky News has independently verified the source of the API data and confirmed that the membership number is accurate.”
Mr Farage said he would spend the weekend weighing up what action to take if the Conservative leader refused to apologise for her “crazy conspiracy theory” in an “intemperate outburst”.
When asked by The Telegraph whether he was considering suing Mrs Badenoch for libel, Mr Farage replied: “I’m going to take some action in the next couple of days, and I’ve got to decide exactly what it is.
“But I’m certainly not going to take it lying down. It’s an absolutely outrageous thing for her to have said.
“Once we’ve fully disproved this, she’s going to find life a lot more difficult and bitterly regret putting this out on Boxing Day afternoon.
“All I’ve said is I want an apology. If I don’t get an apology, I will take action.”
Mr Musk, who met Mr Farage at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida earlier this month, welcomed Reform’s rising membership figures earlier this week.
It has been speculated that he could donate as much as $100 million (£78 million) to the party.
Mr Farage also described Mr Musk as “a bloody hero” and vital in attracting the younger generation of voters.
“The shades, the bomber jacket, the whole vibe. Elon makes us cool,” Mr Farage told The Telegraph.
“Elon is a huge help to us with the young generation, and that will be the case going on, and frankly that’s only just starting.
“Reform only wins the next election if it gets the youth vote. The youth vote is the key. Of course, you need voters of all ages, but if you get a wave of youth enthusiasm you can change everything,
C) NYTimes
