British Minister Jess Phillips hit back sharply on Tuesday at recent remarks by US billionaire Elon Musk, who accused her of being a “rape genocide apologist” after child sex abuse scandals. A minister who has spent much of her career working on issues of domestic violence and human trafficking, Phillips rejected Musk’s accusations, calling them “ridiculous” and saying the comments have seriously disrupted her life.
An ardent supporter of US President-elect Donald Trump, Musk accused the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, through X, of inaction when serving as the Director of Public Prosecutions between 2008 and 2013. In that line, he accused Phillips, asserting that the absence of proper actions from her, and generally a failure on part of many authorities in question to keep abusers responsible for what was being carried out on women across northern England, marked such failures.
The attacks on the part of Musk have spilled into a national debate, this time with opposing politicians demanding an inquest into a string of scandals regarding child abuse. Phillips who closely works with the victims aired her frustration in front of media on Musk’s statement saying she could not stand someone talking, someone who knows nothing about the matter on which they’re speaking of, “he knows absolutely nothing about the subject he’s talking about.”.
In another incident related to the row, Phillips has been threatened; a man is charged with malicious communications. “It’s just painful to have something that can be so simply addressed and debated in such a politicized fashion,” she added. Musk didn’t back off from his earlier claims, rather accused Starler of being complicit in some political scheme, which overlooked this crime.
