UK minister holds six-figure stake in Trump's AI chatbot builder
Jason Stockwood was also given his peerage and ministerial brief after donating £59,000 to Labour
Labour’s investment minister holds a major stake in an American AI company that has built a rightwing chatbot for Donald Trump’s social media network - even as Trump uses his platform to attack Britain’s prime minister, Democracy for Sale can reveal.
Lord Jason Stockwood owns shares worth at least £100,000 in Perplexity AI, a $20 billion tech company building an AI-powered chatbot for Truth Social.
The bot has been accused of having an “extreme bias” toward rightwing sources such as Fox News and Breitbart.
Trump recently used Truth Social to ridicule Keir Starmer’s reluctance to join the US-Israel war with Iran.
Now it emerges that one of Starmer’s ministers owns a sizeable chunk of an AI firm that is powering the US president’s social media platform.
Lord Stockwood, who is also a donor to the Labour Party, was given a life peerage by Starmer last year so that he could serve in his government.
The Grimsby-born businessman owns stakes in a dozen tech companies including Elon Musk’s Tesla.
Experts said Stockwood’s role in Starmer’s administration sent the wrong message about the government’s attitude to US tech companies. “A big investor in Big Tech serving as a minister is a bit like the fox guarding the hen house,” Professor Gina Neff of Cambridge University told us.
Perplexity is one of Silicon Valley’s most controversial AI firms. Founded by an ex-OpenAI researcher, the privately-held company’s valuation has increased 40 times over since January 2024.
It is also giving the Trump government massive discounts on its AI tools - charging entire federal agencies just $0.25 cents to use its top-tier products. But as the firm’s value skyrockets, it is also facing a string of copyright lawsuits.
Publishers at the New York Times, the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal are suing Perplexity for major and repeated copyright violations. In a separate suit, Reddit described Perplexity as a “bad actor” akin to a North Korean hacker”. (The company denies all allegations.)
Copyright campaigners asked how Stockwood could be seen as neutral, given his Perplexity stake. “The government has proposed changing copyright law to benefit AI companies,” said musician and advocate for creators’ rights Ed Newton-Rex.
“How can it claim neutrality when one of its ministers owns a stake in a company facing major lawsuits over those very issues?”
Stockwood made his fortune in e-commerce, later purchasing his hometown football club Grimsby Town FC.
He now owns stakes in at least 12 tech companies and three investment funds. His shares in each firm are worth at least £100,000, which is the threshold for declaration in the Lords’ register of interests, although their true value may be much greater.
But Stockwood’s tech investments are not the only contentious aspect of his appointment.
The businessman, who has never held elected office, has given £59,000 to the Labour since 2019.
A £20,000 cash donation from Stockwood to Labour last year was used to fund his personal campaign unsuccessfully for the Greater Lincolnshire mayoralty. He suffered a heavy defeat to Reform’s Andrea Jenkyns.
Starmer handed Stockwood a life peerage to the House of Lords in September and made him a minister, in a move that “raised multiple red flags”, Spotlight on Corruption director Dr Sue Hawley told us.
“It is clearly controversial to be giving party donors peerages, but to then make that person an unelected minister risks creating perceptions that donations can help you buy the access you need to land a public appointment,” Hawley said.
A government spokesperson said “all appropriate processes with the independent adviser and permanent secretaries on ministerial interests were followed.”
Since coming to power, Labour has been widely criticised for being too close to the tech sector.
As Democracy for Sale previously reported, the Tony Blair Institute has been at the forefront of pushing the government to speed up its adoption of AI technology.
“At a moment when research shows the UK public doesn’t trust AI,” Professor Neff said. “Government has its work cut out making the case that this transformation is for everyone. The problem is the limited range of views feeding into its decisions about AI.”
And finally…. Next Thursday March 19th Democracy for Sale’s very own Peter Geoghegan will be speaking about the impact of “dark money” in Britain as part of Novara Media’s Death in Westminster series.
Peter will be appearing alongside expert guests Faiza Shaheen, Kojo Koram and Stephanie Brobbey at EartH Theatre in Hackney, east London to explore how Britain has turned its capital into a global money laundering machine.
Expect big questions, bold analysis, and the kind of conversation you simply won’t find anywhere else!
Democracy for Sale readers can get tickets through a special discount code via this link that makes general release tickets £15. (The code is D4RKMONEY£)
And you can also listen to the Death in Westminster podcast here (listen out for Peter and Kojo wandering around Tufton Street’s think tank land in Episode 3!)
In these days of “reputational risk” and “due diligence” it would be interesting to know more about the circumstances and personalities surrounding this chap’s elevation to the peerage and the process of embedding into a government role.
If it wasn’t for gifted and diligent journalists like Pete Geoghan this would be going under the radar. Just like we would be no wiser about Mandelson without careful journalistic analysis of the Epstein file dump.
It all begins to look like embedding vested interests is a feature not a bug.