“It’s Sad Watching Desperate Dave”
Why is Zuru billionaire Nick Mowbray tweeting in support of far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson?
Hi,
The thing that stood out at me while shopping for Christmas presents in New Zealand was how hard it was to avoid Zuru products.
Toy manufacturer Zuru is a bit like Netflix, in that it has so much data on what people want they can flood the market with so much gunk it’s guaranteed to be a total hit. That’s to say it will be consumed, and then instantly forgotten.
So while Netflix feeds us titillating yet forgettable true crime documentaries and films like Carry On (heroic TSA agent takes on Jason Bateman from Ozark), Zuru is giving kids Zuru Smashers Mega Light Up Surprise Egg SMASH-O-SAUR and Rainbocorns PUPPYCORN Surprise-Series 8 Scent Surprise Plush Small Hound Dogs.
And New Zealand loves it.
Rather, they love Nick Mowbray.
“The Kiwi toy entrepreneur who knows what’s going to be huge this Christmas,” proclaimed the Spinoff in 2018. “Toy guru Nick Mowbray from Zuru shares what makes kids tick when it comes to toys and the trends he believes are here to stay” gushed the New Zealand Herald in 2022.
Last Halloween, our biggest newsmaker Stuff.co.nz was fizzing at the bunghole about how founder Nick Mowbray was giving away toys at this house.
“The couple took to social media to invite Aucklanders to come check out their haunted home. In addition to the traditional candy giveaways, the pair decided to hand out Zuru toys and candy to children who visited,” they wrote about the generous family worth an estimated $20 billion.
And just one month ago, Nick Mowbray and his siblings were named “visionary leaders of the year” at the Deloitte Top 200 Awards.
“Visionary leaders of the year” stuck with me as I perused Nick Mowbray’s social media feed.
Over the last four days Nick Mowbray has mostly just been tweeting in support of British man Tommy Robinson, a man who’s become a leading figure of the anti-Islam movement in the UK:
The jailing of Robinson is the latest episode in his apparently inexorable rise from the owner of a tanning salon in Luton, Bedfordshire, to the brash pin-up hero of the far right in the UK, the US and beyond. He is, arguably, the most potent individual to have emerged on the British far right since Enoch Powell.
Robinson is no stranger to the justice system. He has convictions for violence, immigration fraud and cocaine possession. He carried out sentences for assault in 2005, and mortgage fraud in 2014.
More recently he helped incite riots in the UK:
Robinson helped to foment riots on the streets of the UK from a five-star hotel in Cyprus. The unrest followed the killing of three young girls at a dance class in Southport.
Having failed to appear at a court hearing in London, Robinson took his family on holiday where he used social media to disseminate disinformation about the Southport attack and called on his supporters to “rise up”. Violent disorder spread across more than two dozen towns and cities, with some of those involved chanting “Tommy Robinson” as they threw bricks, started fires and assaulted police officers.
For more than a week, the UK was in the grip of the unrest. Keir Starmer, the new prime minister, cancelled his summer holiday as Robinson operated from his sun lounger with apparent impunity.
His latest jailing last October was for contempt of court, relating to claims he made in his documentary Silenced (which I’d more accurately describe as a nearly two-long monologue to camera about free speech):
The far-right activist Tommy Robinson has been jailed for 18 months for contempt of court for repeating false allegations against a Syrian refugee, in breach of an injunction.
He was told that “nobody is above the law” by a judge who said the “flagrant” breaches had been done in a “sophisticated” way to ensure the false claims would achieve “maximum coverage”, reaching tens of millions of people.
The false claims made in Silenced were viewed by millions — a documentary shared on social media by the likes of misogynist influencer Andrew Tate and Zuru Toys’ Nick Mowbray.
Tommy Robinson is often mentioned in the same breath as Nigel Farage, though Farage himself has explicitly distanced himself from Tommy and his followers’ “thuggery”.
I think it’s fair to say we know quite a lot about anti-Islam campaigner Tommy Robinson — none of which seems to particularly bother Kiwi Hero Nick Mowbray, who’s apparently dedicated most of 2025 so far to tweeting in support of Robinson’s freedom.
Mowbray has been sharing almost exclusively posts about Tommy Robinson each day this year.
Jan 1, Jan 2, Jan 3, 19 hours ago… you get the idea.
It’s always been my belief you can tell a lot about someone by who they decide to share on social media. In Nick Mowbray’s case, on January 2 he decided to share Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist who spent years harassing family members whose children were gunned down in the Sandy Hook school shooting.
I’ve followed Zuru with interest for years, fascinated by the largely breathless, excited coverage he gets in the press.
At times it’s critical — “Over 7 million Baby Shark bath toys recalled due to risk of injuries to kids” — but it’s far outweighed by paragraph after paragraph describing a Kiwi-kid done good narrative. “Starting from nothing, but with hard work, determination and a fantastic vision he has built an extraordinary world beating business” quoted the Herald in 2019.
Along the way, I’ve tried to report on other aspects of Zuru, like the time they took legal action against Glassdoor — forcing the site to give out details of former Zuru employees who’d dared to criticize their workplace (so Zuru could sue them if they chose to). Back then I talked to the PR reps for Glassdoor, who told Webworm:
“We are deeply disappointed in the Court’s decision, which was effectively decided under New Zealand law. We note that, contrary to Zuru’s contentions, the unflattering workplace experience reviews describing working at Zuru were authored by multiple former Zuru employees.”
Webworm has heard from multiple former employees who want to talk about their experiences at Zuru — but none will go on the record. I’m not surprised. I’m not sure I’d want to go up against a guy worth billions. Millions maybe, but billions… I’m not so sure.
Absolutely none of this is surprising heading in 2025.
The world worships at the feet of “business heroes” like Elon Musk, and a convicted felon and sexual assaulter of women is about to be the president of the United States.
It should come as no surprise we idolize a Kiwi who’s made billions polluting the world with plastic. While we may decry Netflix’s dumbing down of entertainment, at least they’re not helping to stock our oceans with polymers.
While that aspect doesn’t surprise me — Mowbray’s recent social media posts kinda have.
Because of anyone to promote and share, Tommy Robinson and Alex Jones are incredibly disturbing and telling choices.
A few days ago, I tweeted about Nick Mowbray’s flood of tweets in support of far-right activist Tommy Robinson, linking to my 2022 Webworm piece about Zuru’s legal action against Glassdoor.
At some point over the last 12 hours, New Zealand’s biggest success story responded:
In a way, he’s right.
I am always trying to drumb (his spelling, not mine) up subs for this little blog. Webworm is not Zuru. Webworm is fucking tiny.
No argument there — I am about as far from a successful businessperson as one could imagine.
And I do feel desperate. I feel a deep sense of both desperation and dread at the people we hold up as successful. As aspirational heroes.
For years the media has largely held up an uncritical, glowing narrative around Nick Mowbray.
Nick is unstoppably rich — that will never change — but we can at least stop pretending he’s someone we should celebrate and admire.
David.
'Bunch o balloons' was my introduction to Zuru so I hunted till I found EcoSplat. It's not easy to find alternatives, but they're out there. The constant push to glorify that family is revolting.
Nick Mowbray looks like Matt Gaetz's Kiwi cousin.
Every picture of him looks like the last thing you'd see before you're hunted for sport.