Elon Musk has never been shy about sharing his thoughts with his 211 million followers on X. But for those who follow her and embed her posts into their feeds on the app, the past few weeks have been more unusual than most. South African-born, US-based tech CEO Musk has issued a series of missives targeting European leaders.
On Monday, Musk posted a poll asking, “America should free the British people from their oppressive governments.” It came just hours after he went up against Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain’s right-wing Reform UK party and a former Musk ally. Late last month, Musk also wrote an op-ed in a German newspaper in support of the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD); Musk’s article prompted the paper’s opinion editor to resign in protest.
For his American audience, his incessant commentary on European affairs can be confusing. For Europeans, this is annoying and European leaders are backing down.
On Monday, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer criticized people who “spread lies and misinformation” about the country’s past response to issues surrounding childcare groups, highlighting Musk’s comments without naming him publicly. A few days ago, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in an interview, “Don’t feed the troll” when asked about Musk. Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron accused Musk of “unacceptable interference” in European democracies, and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre told public broadcaster NRK that he was “concerned that such a man has such great access to social media and great financial resources. directly participates in the internal affairs of other countries”.
Part of the frustration among European politicians is undoubtedly due to Musk’s influence within the Republican Party: Musk has the ear of new President Donald Trump and has been named co-chair of the new Department of Government Efficiency. “One of the broad political reasons why many European leaders want to push back against him is that I don’t think any of them particularly like having their political agenda hijacked by an American, South African billionaire on the far right. meetings,” says Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester.
Such outspoken attacks also help to increase interest in Musk and keep him in the public eye, which may go some way to explaining why he is fighting world leaders. Starmer said in a speech that people like Musk “don’t care about the victims, they care about themselves.” Musk has certainly hit the news agenda in the U.K. The national broadcaster, the BBC, aired a push notification over the weekend when Musk tweeted to viewers that he felt Starmer was unfit to lead. (Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent through X’s press office.)
Musk’s businesses rely heavily on cozy government relations, particularly with the United States and China, where in 2019 Tesla provided $1.4 billion in loans for its Gigafactory in Shanghai, China. (Tesla paid off the loan two years later.) That’s what has puzzled some about his recent outings against the political leadership: Musk has a lot to lose. damaging relations with many American allies. “Maybe Musk really believes this and wants the hard right in power,” says Theo Bertram, director of the Social Market Foundation, a UK think tank and a former adviser to prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. “Or it could be that he thinks X might get banned, and one way to prevent that is to make a lot of noise about censorship and free speech, so that regulators and politicians are under more intense media and political pressure, and therefore open less likely to move forward with something as controversial as a ban. (While this may seem improbable, Musk has argued before and saw the X temporarily banned in Brazil in recent months.)
Regardless, it is clear that the international community has decided enough. Given that Donald Trump will soon occupy the White House, this could lead to some awkward conversations in the political world as global leaders figure out how to manage Musk’s idiosyncrasies.