More than 8,000 people have written to the UK energy regulator to object to an application from Tesla to enter the British energy market.
Last week, it was reported that the firm headed up by Elon Musk had applied to supply electricity to British households in competition with current providers like British Gas and Octopus, although if granted Tesla’s licence would allow the company to provide electricity only and not other fuels.
The news has proven controversial among the British citizens concerned by Elon Musk’s history of using his business interests to promote dangerous conspiracy theories and support radical and far-right figures. He has made explicit comments undermining the British Government and has a record of unethical business practices, ignoring regulators and subverting worker’s rights.
In response, Best for Britain launched a campaign encouraging people to write to Ofgem to oppose the move on the grounds that Musk is not a ‘fit and proper’ person to hold influence in such an important UK industry, highlighting that radical-right campaigners in the UK are already exploiting the high cost of energy to win voters.
Its online tool has helped 8,462 people to direct their concerns to Ofgem with more than 6,000 doing so in the first 24hrs of the campaign. Best for Britain is encouraging more people to do the same before Ofgem’s deadline for comments on Friday 22nd August. Ofgem will then decide whether to grant the licence or not.
Naomi Smith, Chief Executive of Best for Britain, said:
“We’ve all had a front row seat to Musk’s malign influence, turning Twitter into an incubator for rightwing hate, promoting baseless conspiracy theories and helping Trump secure a second term as US president - something that continues to change our world in profoundly dangerous ways.
“British people are rightly against Musk being anywhere near our electricity supply and that’s why we are encouraging more people to make their views known before Friday by using our online tool to write to Ofgem and say they oppose this powergrab - it only takes 2minutes.”