Why is Elon Musk paying Rupert Lowe thousands to tweet?

**Lewis Goodall** (0:02)
This is a Global Production. Rupert Lowe, as we say, the leader of Restore, is on course to earn almost as much money from Elon Musk's ex as he does for being an MP. Rupert Lowe is not doing this, any of this in an underhand way.
It is all being declared, and it's all above board in the sense that, you know, he's getting paid by ex, he's declaring it.
But I just do think it's that wider question of what MPs can do and how they can earn money and what controls there are. According to his declarations from the Register of MPs Interests, he's effectively earned around 932 pounds an hour for the time he spends on ex. Since June, that has risen to almost 1500 an hour. Do we want this for our politics?

**Jon Sopel** (0:53)
You know, and thanks to Elon Musk and what he did with ex, I think he has released free speech. I think he has returned some sort of semblance of people's ability to be able to force debate without being bullied by a monopoly like the BBC.

**Lewis Goodall** (1:12)
That is the leader of Restore, Rupert Lowe speaking on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast back in July.
He was speaking about how grateful he was to Elon Musk, the owner of X, for liberating British free speech. But it turns out that he might have another reason to be especially grateful to the tech entrepreneur. It seems he is making over a thousand pounds an hour for his posts on X.
Should members of parliament be monetizing outrage? Welcome to The News Agents.
It's Jon. It's Lewis. And this is a story which has been reported in The Guardian today.
Rupert Lowe, as we say, the leader of Restore, he's now polling pretty well for a new party, creating all sorts of problems for Nigel Farage, is on course to earn almost as much money from Elon Musk's X as he does for being an MP, the newspaper is reporting. Since the 2024 election, Lowe has apparently earned more than £105,000 from X's revenue sharing scheme. This is an Elon Musk era innovation on the site. What it does is it pays premium users according to how their posts and how their content on the site performs. And the amount that he's earned from that scheme has accelerated very quickly. So, so far this year, according to his declarations from the Registry of MPs' Interests, he's effectively earned around £932 an hour for the time he spends on X. Since June, that has risen to almost £1,500 an hour. And if his average earnings this year from the site continues, he'll make about £93,000 from X, compared with an MP's salary overall of just around £100,000. And it could quite easily, on the trajectory that he's on, exceed his MP's salary. Why is this controversial? Well, of course, it's controversial because Lowe has built an enormous engagement, partly through extreme, and what many people would say is extremist, provocative political content. Among other things, calling for mass deportations, attacking diversity policies, posting repeatedly in the most graphic terms about immigration and minorities in this country. Indeed, one recent immigration post alone received 1.3 million views. And of course, Musk, it has been said, has helped him algorithmically produce this content and spread it far and wide. And so it begs the question, as Jon said, should MPs be incentivized in monetary terms for creating division and outrage online? And look, we have spent a long time over the past few months looking at reform, looking at the money, looking at the five million pounds donation. Rupert Lowe is a wealthy man. He was the owner of Southampton Football Club. He's got a big farm.
He's had all sorts of business interests over the years. So, it's not like he needs the money. It's not like it's what's keeping him afloat. It isn't. Within the confines of the scheme that Elon Musk has set up, Rupert Lowe is playing by the rules. But it is a very odd set of circumstances where we know, for a fact, that the more outspoken, the more extreme, the more kind of violent almost your views, the more likely it is to generate likes. And if you're algorithmically incentivized, the more likes, the more money, then of course it takes you in one direction. And do we want this for our politics? Do we want, look, it's fine. A lot of journalists, everyone maybe has an X account, maybe most people listening to this podcast have an X account. But are you using it to generate money? Or are you just kind of wanting to be in the public square and have a debate and it just feels as though Rupert Lowe is kind of hit on something that the more extreme you are, and you list there some of the things that he's spoken about, the better you're going to get paid. Well, yeah, I mean, I think this really matters, not just about Lowe himself who we can talk about, but potentially also the precedent it sets for politics in the future. Because in fairness to Lowe, I mean, I see he's posted on X about this today, saying the Guardian is attacking me over receiving money from X. Trust me, if I wanted to make money, I would not be in politics, I donate my entire net MP salaries to charity. This is the most expensive job I've ever had comfortably. So I think it's better to say that Lowe is unlikely to be doing what he's doing, to make money or just to make money.