As some of science’s most eminent figures gather to celebrate the Royal Society’s 362nd anniversary today, one of their number is likely to dominate conversation despite being several thousand miles away.
Elon Musk, the billionaire Tesla chief, is facing an attempt to oust him – having enraged a section of the Society with his scepticism about vaccines and man-made climate change and his controversial political views which they believe could bring the institution into disrepute.
The row hit the headlines this week when Dorothy Bishop, an Oxford University professor, revealed she had resigned as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in protest at Musk’s continued membership of the organisation. Highlighting the Society’s code of conduct, which requires fellows to treat each other with courtesy, she said: “I’m not going to be polite and nice to Elon Musk.”
In the supposedly sedate, objective and calculated world of science, this is about as close to High Noon as you will get.
But not every FRS approves of Bishop’s decision, and some have told The Telegraph, anonymously, that they support Musk’s fellowship (bestowed on the entrepreneur in 2018 for his technological achievements, most notably in space travel and electric vehicle development). They will not voice their support in public, they say, for fear of being ostracised – not least due to the unpopularity of defending Musk’s position on climate change.
They also believe the Society – the world’s oldest scientific academy which boasts Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Stephen Hawking among its former members – should stay out of politics. But, again, they are aware that a majority of fellows have been appalled by Musk’s support of Donald Trump and, in particular, his pronouncements condemning the Labour government here in the UK.
During the riots in the summer, the tycoon wrote on Twitter, the platform he owns and has rebranded as X, that civil war was “inevitable” in the UK, and has since criticised Prime Minister Keir Starmer repeatedly – on everything from immigration policy to freedom of speech.
“It just felt having him in the Royal Society (RS) seemed such a contradiction of all the values of the Royal Society [and] I didn’t really want to have anything to do with it,” Bishop wrote on her blog on Monday in an attempt to explain her decision to quit.
“I just started to think, you know, the Royal Society seemed to be set up to make it very, very difficult to ever get somebody to resign or to actually get thrown out, and given all I know about Musk, it felt grubby, to be honest.”
The RS code of conduct says fellows should have “a spirit of openness, courtesy and cooperation”, “uphold the reputation of the Society” and “not engage in…discrimination, harassment, or bullying.”
Bishop, however, is only prepared to extend courtesy so far: “What I said to [RS president, Sir Adrian Smith, and executive director, Dame Julie Maxton] was, ‘I’m not going to be polite and nice to Elon Musk, I’m afraid, so I can’t keep to the code of conduct.’”
The Oxford academic lists Musk’s crimes as “using social media for political propaganda…battling what he sees as the ‘woke mind virus’ and attacks on free speech.’”
Among other offences, Bishop listed Musk’s tweets on climate change:
“In 2023 Musk played down the seriousness of climate change, and, in 2024, participated in a bizarre interview with Donald Trump, which dismayed climate experts,” Bishop wrote.
She added: “Any pleasure I may take in the distinction of the honour of an FRS is diminished by the fact it is shared with someone who appears to be modeling himself on a Bond villain, a man who has immeasurable wealth and power which he will use to threaten scientists who disagree with him.”
The question of Musk’s continued fellowship of the Society first arose in August, when 74 fellows wrote to the institution, asking whether he was “a fit and proper person to hold the considerable honour of being a fellow of the Royal Society.”
The Society is understood to have taken legal advice in the wake of this letter. But Bishop claims “the lawyer determined that Musk hadn’t breached the code of conduct.”
Bishop states that signatories “were unhappy with this response” and pointed to a 2022 Musk tweet – “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci” – which they said was “antivaxx”, anti-LGBTQ, and put Anthony Fauci, the immunologist who headed America’s Covid taskforce under Donald Trump, “at further risk”, following years of attacks from vaccine sceptics.
A former member of the RS ruling Council, Brian Foster, who is a professor of experimental physics at Oxford University, told The Telegraph that he was not a signatory but had raised concerns. “The mistake was to have elected [Musk] in the first place but we elect people on the basis of their scientific and technological achievements, not whether they are nice people or how they behave in non-scientific or political arenas,” he says.
“This is a point I made to a senior Labour politician who taxed me on this subject just after Musk was elected. Musk is not deemed to have legally violated the Society’s code of conduct, so there is nothing we can do except rue the day we elected him.”
Foster, who declined to name the Labour politician in question, concedes that even RS members who hold “non-mainstream scientific views” cannot be expelled on legal grounds. “There are quite a few, astonishingly, who don’t believe that man-made climate change is real. So, we have to be careful,” he says.
One distinguished FRS, who asks to remain anonymous, suggests that members opposed to Dorothy Bishop’s view feel alienated but are staying silent. “I’ve got several friends who have been hurt by this, so, basically, their attitude is: if it’s not on my bailiwick, I don’t want to stick my head on the block,” the fellow says.
He adds of Bishop: “I wouldn’t have resigned. I mean, I have my differences with the Royal Society on a number of things, but I haven’t resigned. The problem is pretty clear that, as an engineer, Elon Musk has done some pretty remarkable things. He’s like a modern-day version of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
“So, I don’t think that the fact that he’s elected a fellow of the Royal Society is a question of judgment. It is pretty clear he is eligible, and he’s done those things.
“The thing is that, if anybody in the Royal Society goes mad or does some crazy things or takes up some crazy cause, afterwards, is that a reason for getting rid of him? I think the fact that [Bishop] says she can’t live in the same [organisation], I think that has to be her problem, not his.”
The academic declined to comment on Musk’s views but said “Musk’s handling of X and his attitude to robust debate is interesting and is probably at one end of a spectrum. And that’s probably what some people don’t like about it.”
One long-time observer believes that Musk’s election betrays an inherent problem at the Royal Society.
He says: “There are two issues here. One, a needless sucking up to celebrities such as Musk and, two, rewarding individuals of no particular intellectual distinction. There was a time, not long ago, when the letters FRS after someone’s name meant they had made a fundamental contribution to human knowledge. That’s no longer the case.
“[But] no one will want to say this, particularly in relation to Musk, who is a pretty remarkable figure but not an FRS intellectual. But that is not what is driving this controversy, which is political.”
Former Tory science minister Andrew Griffith says: “It is shocking that there are some within the Royal Society who seek to politicise the body and introduce cancel culture. If people resign because they can’t bring themselves to be polite to fellow society members, that says more about them than it does about Elon Musk whose endeavours are making a significant contribution to humanity.
“The Royal Society receives a substantial amount of taxpayer money, so it is imperative it remains strictly objective.”
Given the byzantine process required to expel an FRS it seems unlikely that Musk will be kicked out any time soon. The last recorded expulsion occurred over 150 years ago.
A Royal Society spokesman says: “The Royal Society greatly regrets Dorothy Bishop’s resignation from the fellowship. She is an outstanding scientist and has contributed much to the society over her years as a fellow.
“In the event of any concerns raised about the behaviour of a fellow, the society has a clear set of processes described in our code of conduct, which is published on our website along with relevant disciplinary regulations.
“Any issues raised in respect of individual fellows are dealt with in strict confidence.”
