Elon Musk's 'Petition' Shared on X with 2.57 Million Signatures: What's It About...

Online Petition for UK Early General Election

In the UK, where the Labour Party government has been in power for less than five months, nearly 2.6 million people have signed an online petition calling for the dissolution of Parliament and an early general election.

On the 26th, Yonhap News quoted the UK Parliament website, reporting that a petition demanding a general election was posted, stating that "the Labour Party government did not keep the promises made in the last general election." As of that morning, more than 2.57 million people had joined the petition.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, was campaigning on the 27th of last month. Photo by AP News Agency

Since the petition was posted last weekend, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, sent a message of support via social media.

On the morning of the 24th, Musk shared another user's post on X (formerly Twitter), which stated that 200,000 people had signed the petition, writing "Wow." This "Wow post" received 146,000 likes and was retweeted 27,000 times.

Earlier, from late July to August, Musk publicly clashed with the Starmer government over anti-immigration and anti-Islam violent protests in the UK.

The violent protests in the UK began after a stabbing incident on July 29 at a children's dance class in Southport, England, where three children died. Unfounded rumors spread on social media that the perpetrator was a "Muslim asylum seeker."

Musk expressed sympathy by adding exclamation marks and comments to online content related to the protests, posted videos showing street violence, and added the opinion that "civil war is inevitable."

When Prime Minister Starmer stated, "We will not tolerate attacks on mosques and Muslim communities," Musk posted a response questioning, "Shouldn't we be concerned about attacks on 'all' communities?"

Regarding this, the UK Prime Minister's spokesperson said about Musk's criticism of the UK government, "We will not be swayed by individual comments," and added, according to the American political media outlet The Hill, "The Prime Minister is focusing on the issues most important to the British people."

On the 19th, President Donald Trump and Elon Musk

Meanwhile, if more than 100,000 people sign a petition, it can be formally debated in Parliament. However, since the Labour Party holds an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons, there are also opinions that the likelihood of another general election being held soon in the UK is low.

Keir Starmer, who has the authority to request an early general election from the monarch, dismissed the possibility of an early election on the 25th during an ITV broadcast, saying, "What I need to focus on are the (policy) decisions that must be made every day."

He emphasized, "In the last general election, many people did not vote for the Labour Party, and it would not be surprising if many of them want a re-election, but our system does not work that way."