In 2021, Elon Musk told followers of the X platform, then known as Twitter, “I would prefer to stay out of politics.” Since then, a lot has changed.
Musk is now the owner of the social media giant, called X, which has become a personal platform for expression.
He has brought back far-right figures who had been ousted by previous owners. Musk spent a quarter of a billion dollars to help re-elect Donald Trump as president of the United States and stood a few feet away from him during the inauguration.
Now, with that task completed, the richest man in the world seems to have a new goal: to shake up Europe, government after government, writes cnn.
Musk has established himself as a key figure in the populist wave that is challenging Europe's central leaders. "From MAGA to MEGA: Make Europe Great Again!" he wrote on Saturday, relishing the unrest he is bringing to the continent, the Telegraph reports.
Several European Union leaders have accused him of interfering in their affairs and promoting dangerous figures. Musk has waged a fierce and personal campaign against the UK government, supported the release from prison of a far-right activist and supported a far-right party in Germany that advocates a nationalist platform and has been embroiled in scandals over the views of some of its members on the Nazi era.
At the same time, a wave of misinformation on Musk's platform — much of it fueled by anger over high levels of migration — has alarmed European governments. Some in the UK blame him for sparking a wave of far-right unrest last summer.
"I'm amazed by his lack of restraint in thinking he can intervene in some places where the issues are complex," said Eric Nelson, a diplomat who served as Trump's ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina during his first term, adding, "to pretend to know better. That's an extraordinary arrogance."
But X's influence, Musk's immense wealth, and his role as Trump's efficiency adviser make it a difficult problem to address. Political figures in Europe are asking two questions: Why does Musk care about us, and what can we do about it?
None of these questions are easy to answer. “Europeans are stuck,” said Bill Echikson, senior fellow in technology policy at the CEPA center and former director of communications for Google in Europe.
Leaders on the continent “are certainly worried,” he added. “They certainly blame disinformation and automated bots for the problems in the European elections and for the rise of extremists.
"(But) they don't have any plan. They don't know how to react yet," Echikson said.
'An attempt to "cancel" it'
Elon Musk's policies have evolved at breakneck speed since the SpaceX and Tesla magnate's hostile takeover of Twitter in 2022.
“For Twitter to earn the public’s trust, it must be politically neutral,” he insisted at the time. He described politics as a “generator of sadness” and wrote that “politics is war and the truth is the first casualty.”
Today, Musk is on the front lines of the battle. The platform owner has levels of destabilizing influence in the world that few figures unnamed by voters have ever had, without facing the scrutiny of the electorate. He welcomes and spreads the views of radical figures and has supported staunchly anti-establishment populists across Europe. It is not yet clear how much influence he will have on Trump’s foreign policy — which is why, for now, European governments are unsure how to handle his interventions.
But his comments fit into a broader, interventionist tone toward Europe coming from the new administration and could put Musk in a role as a mediator. Trump and Musk have already forged close ties with figures who at least partly share similar policies, such as the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, a hardline politician on immigration who attended the inauguration in a break with tradition.
Some who previously promoted Trump’s interests in Europe now see Musk as an unfettered, even more hawkish version of the president; an agitator whose style and ambition have begun to mirror Trump’s. Like Trump, polls suggest Musk is unpopular across Europe.
"It's interesting to see the similarities between him and Trump; their ability to try to steer public opinion, especially, unfortunately, by spreading misinformation. They create a lot of chaos, they're shocking," Nelson said.
This chaos was exacerbated by a gesture Musk made with his right arm on stage during a post-inauguration rally that some in Europe found uncomfortably similar to the Nazi or Roman salute used by fascist leaders in Germany and Italy. Musk dismissed the backlash as a misinterpretation, writing on X that “the ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is so tiresome.”
Italian and German media outlets paid close attention to the negative reactions, with Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera calling it a “RoMusk salute,” while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz—a frequent target of Musk’s criticism—declared on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, “everyone is free to express their opinion in Germany and Europe, including billionaires… but we do not accept support for far-right positions.” Musk responded on the X platform, “shame on you, Oaf Schitz!”
There is disagreement about the exact reason why Musk is focusing on Europe.
This could be personal. “When Elon took over Twitter, there was a deliberate effort to shame companies that advertised on his platform, to isolate him and cancel him out,” said Trevor Traina, Trump’s former ambassador to Austria, where a far-right party is close to power.
"So Elon has tasted the same bitter pill that Donald Trump and others have been forced to taste, and I think what we're seeing today is his response," he asserted.
Or it could be financial; a more classic story of innovator pitting himself against regulators. “I think his goal is always to think about his business interests,” Nelson said.
Musk has criticized the many regulations surrounding the technology sector in Europe; he runs a large Tesla factory in Germany, a country where he has focused much of his attention, and is planning a controversial expansion of that facility.
Can Europe respond?
When it comes to European politics, Elon Musk has his favorites. He writes frequently about Reform UK, the British populist party, and the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the German far-right party. But he doesn't post about Marine Le Pen, the French antagonist of Emmanuel Macron's government, and he seems to have no interest in Austria.
British and German politics are suitable terrain; the main parties in both countries are deeply unpopular, tainted by periods of power plagued by inflation or scandal, or seen by much of the public as callous, unimaginative and technocratic. Germany is due to hold elections next month, in which the AfD could emerge as the second-largest party. Just last year, the AfD became the first far-right party to win an election in a German state since the Nazi era.
There is something else in common: each country has failed to adequately address public anger over immigration, which is threatening to become the continent's defining political dynamic.
However, Musk will need to build lasting alliances to have any serious impact. He has already clashed publicly with Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, who refused to back his support for imprisoned far-right figure Tommy Robinson. Reform is still hoping for a major financial donation from Musk, but the conflict has dampened the party’s optimism. In addition, Musk will face regulatory hurdles.
A fine, which could reach up to 6 percent of his company X's annual global revenue, is on the horizon, as the EU is concluding an investigation into whether X breached the rules of the Digital Services Act, which regulates how the tech industry deals with disinformation and illegal content on social media, as well as illegal goods and services in online marketplaces.
In Britain, Musk has been invited to testify before the Parliamentary Committee on Science, Innovation and Technology about his company's algorithm after he was accused of promoting misinformation about a tragic child slaughter last summer, which resulted in clashes between protesters and police, as well as the burning of hotels housing asylum seekers.
“Freedom of speech is part of a conversation,” said Chi Onwurah, the Labour lawmaker who chairs the committee, adding that “instead of shouting across the Atlantic at the UK, will he engage in legitimate democratic processes that represent the British people and have a conversation with us?”
For now, Musk's closeness to Trump may shield him from such scrutiny. "I don't expect (Europe) to do much; they don't want to start a war with Donald Trump," Etchikson said.
But the more the tech mogul gets involved in European affairs, the more tense this stance becomes.
"If he is, as it seems, entering politics. Then as part of that, you need to listen, not just talk," Onwurah said. /Telegraph/
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