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Nigel Farage's Reform UK claims to represent a people's revolt against the political elite. But documents reviewed by Byline Times, alongside corporate and regulatory filings in London and the United States, reveal that the party's own Treasurer was recently invested with the same Silicon Valley donor bloc - including Elon Musk - that powered Donald Trump's return.
The relationship highlights how the party's finances have been linked to the fortunes of America's pro-Trump elite, as Reform mirrors their pro-fossil fuel agenda and attacks on Net Zero.
Reform UK's Treasurer and property billionaire Nick Candy, is now the single biggest donor to the party, having given a total of £1 million. But until January 2024, Candy was also limited-partner investor in ACME Capital - a California venture fund specialising in early-stage technology companies. Its star portfolio contains SpaceX, the most valuable private startup in the world. SpaceX's eponymous founder and owner is Elon Musk, by far the biggest funder of Trump's return to power - who is now also funding the criminal defence of far-right convicted fraudster Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who calls himself 'Tommy Robinson'.
Musk's is not the only company linked to ACME Capital in Trump's donor network. Other major ventures which were kickstarted with support from ACME include Uber, Airbnb, Robinhood and OpenGov - companies whose founders and executives have collectively poured millions of dollars into Trump's super PACs, inaugural committees and Republican politicians.
Byline Times can reveal that Nick Candy's investment in this Silicon Valley venture fund, from which he exited in 2024, was made through an offshore entity based in Guernsey.
As Reform UK pledges to scrap Britain's net zero targets and "unlock" new oil and gas drilling, its policies mirror the fossil fuel revival now unfolding under Trump's second-term agenda - an agenda financed by the same tech billionaires linked to Candy.
Nick Candy's Silicon Valley Connection
When Candy poured money into the venture firm ACME Capital, he wasn't simply buying into start-ups. He was buying into Silicon Valley's most powerful new political constituency - what would soon become a billion-dollar network helping bankroll Donald Trump's return to the White House.
Candy Ventures Ltd was first set up by Nick Candy in 2015. By the end of 2023, the firm had a gross book value of £145 million and a net value of £60 million, with 17 portfolio companies. However, the total 'mark-to-market' value of its investments was reportedly around £350 million. Today, its website says that it has funded some 25 companies in total. One of the companies listed as part of the Candy Ventures portfolio on its website is ACME Capital.
ACME Capital's story begins in Silicon Valley's boom years, when its predecessor Sherpa Capital made some of the most lucrative early bets of the 2010s. In 2011, Sherpa's co-founders invested in Uber, helping turn a fledgling ride-share startup into a global disruptor. Around the same time, Sherpa took early stakes in Airbnb, then a scrappy home-letting platform, and Robinhood, a commission-free trading app pitched as "finance for the people." By mid-decade, the firm had added SpaceX, Elon Musk's rocket company, to its late-stage portfolio - a mark of its growing clout among elite venture investors - and joined the 2015 funding round for OpenGov, a civic-data company promising transparency in public finance.
When Sherpa's operations re-emerged as ACME Capital in 2018, those holdings formed the backbone of its first funds. It is not clear when or how much Nick Candy first invested in ACME Capital. In 2020, Candy Ventures first listed ACME Capital on its website, with the description "investing in breakthrough technologies including Cue, Airbnb and Uber." That was the year outg...