Janet, this is well documented, and for those who aren't aware: in December 2025, Bloomberg Philanthropies launched a three year programme to train UK metro mayors, developed with the London School of Economics. Andy Burnham himself said he'd been "a partner to Bloomberg Philanthropies since his first year as mayor" and that the region had "benefitted enormously."
Steve Reed, the Housing and Communities Secretary, welcomed it too, saying it showed influential international bodies recognised the importance of devolution. Bloomberg has trained 387 mayors worldwide, including 9 of England's 11 Mayoral Strategic Authorities.
Now compare that to
@elonmusk. He doesn't train ministers, fund government programmes or shape devolution policy. He owns a platform people use to hold this government to account, and occasionally weighs in himself. For that, he gets cast as a singular threat to British democracy, which is exactly the framing we see in posts from politicians like Ed Davey.
That's why Bloomberg, an American billionaire actively embedding his own staff, his own university partners and his own policy preferences into British local government, receives a warm welcome from a government minister and Elon Musk gets vilified.
So the real distinction isn't foreign billionaires influencing British politics. It's which billionaire, and what they're saying. One funds programmes that align with the government's agenda. The other owns a platform where people who disagree with it can be heard. Once you see that as the actual dividing line, Ed Davey's framing makes a lot more sense.