European leaders have all felt the vicious ‘tongue lash’ of Elon Musk’s social media outbursts but none more than Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The business mogul and tech-billionaire owner of X had only recently, called him an “incompetent fool”, urging him to resign. Soon after, Musk announced he would use his platform to host Alice Weidel, the head of Germany’s far-right, anti-immigrant AfD for a lengthy chat on Monday.
In reaction, a lot of German politicians have said it smacks of political interference, with the AfD running second in the polls ahead of federal elections on 23 February.
Some of Europe’s leaders, notably Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, have found favour with Musk, but others are finding it hard to ignore him and his outbursts, especially as he ventures into their domestic politics ahead of a new role of adviser to the incoming US President Donald Trump.
Within 24 hours, four European governments objected to Musk’s posts.
France leader, Emmanuel Macron was among the first to expressed shock on Monday.
“Ten years ago, who would have believed it, if we had been told that the owner of one of the biggest social networks in the world would support a new, international reactionary movement and intervene directly in elections, including in Germany?” he said.
The Norwegian Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Store also weighed in, , saying he found it “worrying that a man with considerable access to social networks and significant economic resources is so directly involved in the internal affairs of other countries”.
Spain’s government spokeswoman, Pilar Alegría, had howeverC remarked that digital platforms such as X should act with “absolute neutrality and above all without any kind of interference”.
The Tesla CEO, Musk had previously highlighted crime statistics in Norway and Spain, and blamed the recent deadly Christmas market attack in Germany on Europe’s “mass unchecked immigration“.
Musk has also, in the past few days, written numerous posts attacking the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his administration over grooming gangs and child sexual exploitation.
“Those who are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as “mass unchecked immigration wide as possible are not interested in victims, they’re interested in themselves,” the UK prime minister, remarked but he had not mentioned Musk personally.
Two notable exceptions to Musk’s online lashings in Europe are Italy and Hungary.
This may be due to the fact that Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has cultivated close ties with Elon Musk and has been quoted to regard the tech tycoon as a “genius” and an “extraordinary innovator”.
Hungary’s leader, Viktor Orban, on the other hand had met Musk while visiting Trump at Mar-a-Lago last month, and is said to share Musk’s dislike of Hungarian-born liberal philanthropist George Soros.
But it is the tech-billionaire’s interference in German politics that is most worrisome due to imminent elections.
Musk has spoken out several times in favour of the AfD in recent weeks, even going as far as writing a highly controversial article for Welt am Sonntag in which he tagged the AfD the “last spark of hope” for Germany.
With his level of influence, this interference could prove troublesome,
Musk had justified his intervention at the time because of his company Tesla’s financial investment in Germany. According to him, portraying the AfD as right-wing, extremist was “clearly false”, because Alice Weidel had a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka.
Meanwhile, German security services have labelled the AfD either as right-wing extremist or alleged extremist while the courts have ruled that it pursues goals against democracy.
