{"id":748456,"date":"2026-08-24T18:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T18:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/748456\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T18:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T18:54:10","slug":"rupert-lowe-set-to-be-paid-as-much-for-divisive-posts-on-elon-musks-x-as-for-being-mp-rupert-lowe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/748456\/","title":{"rendered":"Rupert Lowe set to be paid as much for divisive posts on Elon Musk\u2019s X as for being MP | Rupert Lowe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rupert Lowe, the leader of Restore Britain<\/a>, is on course to earn as much from the social media platform X as he does from his salary as an MP, after surging income from posts that include demands for mass deportations.<\/p>\n

Lowe has earned \u00a3932 an hour for his posts on X<\/a>, formerly Twitter, since the start of the year, according to his own declarations in the register of MPs\u2019 financial interests, which detail how many hours he has spent on X for each payment he received from the platform.<\/p>\n

The figure is more than twice the \u00a3377 an hour on average he earned last year. His hourly rate rose steeply again this summer, reaching \u00a31,476 since the start of June.<\/p>\n

X critics claim it is further evidence that X is favouring and incentivising divisive political content, pulling the UK\u2019s political discourse to the right. Elon Musk, the site\u2019s owner, has repeatedly amplified Lowe\u2019s posts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Under X\u2019s revenue-sharing scheme, premium subscribers such as Lowe are paid based on the performance of their posts. The scheme resulted in record payouts last year<\/a>. The platform recently announced forthcoming changes, designed to reward original content and commentary.<\/p>\n

Lowe\u2019s total income from X since the 2024 general election has now surpassed \u00a3105,000. He earned more than half of that in the first eight months of 2026.<\/p>\n

Should his average earnings for 2026 so far continue throughout the year, he would earn just over \u00a393,000 \u2013 close to the current MPs\u2019 \u00a398,599 annual salary. He could easily exceed that figure should the higher rate of earnings of recent months persist.<\/p>\n

Lowe has previously said he donates his net MP\u2019s salary<\/a> to charities and worthy causes in his constituency of Great Yarmouth.<\/p>\n

The politician\u2019s extraordinary success on X has led to concerns among some campaigners, who fear it is a sign that Musk\u2019s site is effectively funding an MP that reflects the hard-right views of the billionaire<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tend to treat a politician\u2019s online reach and their income as two separate stories, but for Rupert Lowe<\/a> they\u2019re part of the same mechanism,\u201d said Ambrose Pym, a researcher covering the far right and technology who analysed Lowe\u2019s rising X earnings. \u201cThe more his content is seen, the more X pays him for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cScrutiny is rightly falling on other sources of foreign money in British politics. However, a US-based billionaire simultaneously paying and boosting an ideologically aligned British politician through his own platform is going strikingly under-reported. X\u2019s financial and reach incentive structure rewards division and is shaping British politics with almost none of the scrutiny it deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lowe, who founded Restore Britain after leaving Nigel Farage\u2019s Reform UK, describes his party\u2019s most significant achievement as \u201cdragging mass deportations [of migrants] into mainstream politics\u201d.<\/p>\n

Asked about his accelerating X earnings, Lowe told the Guardian: \u201cIf I wanted to make money, I would not be in politics. I donate my entire net MP salary to local charities in my constituency \u2013 being a politician is the most expensive job I\u2019ve ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n

His recent posts on X show the extraordinary amount of engagement the Restore leader secures on the platform. Over the weekend, one of his posts stated: \u201cAn illegal migrant could read ten thousand Home Office pamphlets in some woeful attempt to \u2018integrate\u2019, I\u2019d still want him deported.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey broke into our country \u2013 they are not welcome here, and they all need to be removed. This is not complicated.\u201d It received 1.3m views, 25,000 likes and 3,000 reposts.<\/p>\n

Last week, a post about how the UK should replicate Portugal\u2019s ban on the burqa in many public spaces received almost a million views.<\/p>\n

Lowe\u2019s previous posts have included describing diversity policies as a<\/a> \u201cwicked, malicious, viperous cancer\u201d and have criticised illegal migrants as \u201cunvetted foreign males\u201d loitering \u201cwhere your daughter walks home\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Guardian has contacted X with a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rupert Lowe, the leader of Restore Britain, is on course to earn as much from the social media…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":748457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-748456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/748457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}