Elon Musk’s X ‘fact-checks’ Kemi Badenoch’s ‘fakery’ tweet referring to Reform’s membership numbers

Elon Musk social media platform X has put a fact-check note on Kemi Badenoch’s tweet in which she claimed Reform UK had faked membership numbers.Conflict has broken out after Badenoch accused Nigel Farage of “fakery” after Reform claimed to have surpassed the Conservative’s number of signed-up members.Farage is considering taking legal action against the Tory leader if she does not apologise for her “intemperate outburst” after his party revealed the inner workings of its tracker, claiming this proves that the party has more members.In a post on X this morning, the Farage tagged Badenoch in a post writing: “When will you apologise to me and 146,077 other members of Reform UK?”The Tory leader had previously posted a thread on X accusing Reform and Farage of feeding the public “endless lies, smoke and mirrors” and claimed the counter was “coded to tick up automatically”.She added: “Farage doesn’t understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled.”However her posts have been given a “community note” – a feature where users can add context to tweets.The note says: “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.”The Telegraph reported that they were shown strong evidence yesterday that Reform’s figures are based on verified membership data which is logged in real time. Farage has said he will spend the weekend thinking about the action he will take if Badenoch refused to apologise.When asked if he was considering suing the Tory leader, he said: “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.”He also called Elon Musk “a bloody hero,” and said he was helping attract younger voters.Musk has welcomed Reform’s rising numbers, stating that “change is coming”.This comes as rumors say Musk could donate up to £78million to Farage’s party.

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