THE South Lakes MP Tim Farron has described Elon Musk as an 'utter berk'.

The MP hit out at the owner of X - formerly Twitter - over the billionaire businessman's social media posts on the UK riots.

Mr Musk used his platform to respond to statements given by Prime Minister Keir Starmer on protecting mosques or Muslim communities from attacks.

He asked the PM: "Shouldn’t you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?"

Responding to the post, Mr Farron said: "Elon, forgive me, but there is no excuse for being such an utter berk about this. I’m white and a Christian.

"No one is chucking bricks at my church or telling me to go back to where I come from.

"I’m concerned about attacks on the communities that are actually *being* attacked."

The Tesla founder has also been criticised for saying on his social media platform that 'civil war is inevitable' in the UK.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s official spokesman said on Monday that there was 'no justification for comments like that'.

“We’re talking about a minority of thugs who don’t speak for Britain,” he said.

And justice minister Heidi Alexander also slammed the comments, saying:  “If you have got a platform, a large social media platform, then you have also got a responsibility.”

On Monday, Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said he had met representatives from TikTok, Facebook’s parent company Meta, Google and X 'to make clear their responsibility to continue to work with us to stop the spread of hateful misinformation and incitement'.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the Government would not tolerate 'armchair thuggery' and that social media platforms needed to take responsibility for the spread of online misinformation which has fuelled much of the disorder.