Just a few days before Donald Trump returns to the White House, voices of alarm – and indignation – are growing among European leaders about the aggressive interferences of Elon Musk. Yesterday, it was French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and the spokesperson for the European Commission who expressed deep concern about the behavior of the owner of Tesla and the X network.
The Macron case is significant because the French head of state, who always boasts of his good relationship with the business world, has met with Musk several times at the Élysée Palace. The entrepreneur was among the guests on December 7th at the ceremony for the reopening of Notre Dame.
Elon Musk
In his annual address to the ambassadors, Macron did not mention Musk by name, although the allusion was clear. When discussing electoral manipulations of Russian origin and other destabilizing maneuvers, he pondered: “Who would have told us, ten years ago, that the owner of one of the largest social networks in the world would support a new reactionary international and directly intervene in elections, including those in Germany?”
The French President, being cautious, did not expand his criticisms to Trump himself, who is a friend and partner of Musk. He predicted that, just like during his first term, France and Europe will “know how to work” with him, despite differences in opinion, and emphasized that France is “a solid ally.”
The patience with Musk also ran out on the British side. Prime Minister Starmer denounced his “lies and threats aimed at spreading the poison of the far right.” Even the ultra-conservative populist leader Nigel Farage distanced himself from him, and the liberal leader Ed Davey advised him to “not meddle in the affairs of a country about which he claims to know a lot but actually knows nothing.”
Just a few weeks ago, the owner of Tesla and X showed willingness to donate up to 120 million euros to the Reform UK party, led by the Eurosceptic Farage. But on Saturday, he severed ties with the English politician (who, by his side, seems a paragon of moderation and common sense), and called for someone more radical to take charge of the group. All of this because he distanced himself from the neo-fascist and xenophobic Tommy Robinson, stating that he has no place in his party.
The French president accuses the entrepreneur of promoting “a new reactionary international”
Musk not only calls for the head of his former friend Farage, but also of Starmer himself, for having been Attorney General when the scandal of sexual abuse of dozens of underage Pakistani-origin children was uncovered, whom their own parents and relatives were grooming –creating emotional ties– to have relationships with adults. The Labour leader dismissed a complaint for considering the witness lacked credibility, but eventually several individuals were found guilty and sentenced to prison terms.
Musk has stated several times that the UK is a “Islamic fundamentalism paradise” thanks to the permissiveness of figures like Starmer and the Muslim mayor of London Sadiq Khan, and has denounced “the violation of freedom of expression by the far right,” and that its members receive much harsher punishments than environmental or pro-Palestinian activists when inciting or participating in riots.
Musk, who is obsessed with Great Britain, has also criticized Starmer for not acting as attorney general against the sexual predator Jimmy Savile, and has called for the imprisonment of Secretary of State Jess Phillips for not adequately protecting, in his opinion, the victims of a group rape in the city of Oldham.
On January 3, it was the German Vice Chancellor, Robert Habeck, who in an interview with the magazine Der Spiegel, accused the American tycoon of launching a frontal attack on German democracy with his open support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). “The combination of immense wealth, control over information and networks, the use of artificial intelligence with the intent to circumvent rules is a frontal attack on our democracy,” said Habeck.
Musk had expressed his support for AfD days earlier, first through his social network X and later in an article published by the newspaper Die Welt, which led to the resignation of the opinion section chief of the publication. This Thursday, Musk is scheduled to interview AfD's candidate through the X platform. “A party whose candidate is a married lesbian woman from Sri Lanka cannot be far-right,” Musk said at the time. Weidel, on her part, couldn't have been more pleased yesterday: “We are looking forward to this exciting conversation and, above all, a great audience,” the candidate tweeted.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre echoed the criticisms of Musk. “I find it concerning that a man with huge access to social media and vast economic resources gets so directly involved in the internal affairs of other countries,” he told the public broadcaster NRK. “This is not how things should be between democracies and allies,” he added.
The British Prime Minister deplores “the lies” of Musk, who breaks with Nigel Farage for being too moderate
From Brussels, finally, the spokesperson for the European Commission, Thomas Regnier, insisted that Musk has the right to express himself, although he cautioned that any risk to democracy in the German legislative elections in February will be analyzed through the Digital Services Act. Regnier also pointed out that the Commission has already initiated proceedings against X last December, suspecting non-compliance with points related to the management of risks regarding civic discourse and electoral processes.
