Elon Musk aims his digital megaphone at Europe. Why?
| Boston
With his rightward political turn and campaign spending, Elon Musk has already shaken up U.S. politics, helping Donald Trump win a second term and muscling into his inner circle. Now the billionaire entrepreneur is throwing his weight around in European politics.
In recent weeks, Mr. Musk has endorsed far-right parties and politicians in Europe and used X, the social media platform he owns, to push his brand of antiestablishment politics.
Why We Wrote This
Elon Musk’s efforts to influence European politics raise a host of questions about his business interests, and the degree to which he speaks for himself or President-elect Donald Trump.
By using his digital megaphone in Europe, he’s exerting influence on democracies that are already under pressure from populists on both the left and right amid roiling voter disenchantment.
For leaders in Europe, one question is whether Mr. Musk is telegraphing the views of Mr. Trump and laying the groundwork for a disruptive, “America First” foreign policy. But even if he’s simply speaking for himself, the reach of his posts on his digital platform, and the real-world effects they have already sparked, represent a rare concentration of power in one man’s fingers.
“I think he wants to bring a different world into being,” says Gary Gerstle, a professor emeritus of American history at the University of Cambridge. “He’s a great believer in disruption as being a key to a better future.”
With his rightward political turn and campaign spending, Elon Musk has already shaken up U.S. politics, helping Donald Trump win a second term and muscling into his inner circle. Now the billionaire entrepreneur is throwing his weight around in European politics.
In recent weeks, Mr. Musk has endorsed far-right parties and politicians in Europe and used X, the social media platform he owns, to push his brand of antiestablishment politics. He has praised Germany’s AfD party (Alternative for Germany), which has neo-Nazi ties and is being monitored for extremism by domestic intelligence agencies, as the only party that can “save” the country.
The AfD is running second in polls ahead of national elections scheduled for Feb. 23. On Thursday, Mr. Musk is hosting AfD leader Alice Weidel on a livestream on X; he also wrote a German newspaper opinion article in support of the party. In Italy, meanwhile, he has used his megaphone to blast judges in Rome who blocked the offshore processing of asylum-seekers and questioned whether an “unelected autocracy” was making decisions.
Why We Wrote This
Elon Musk’s efforts to influence European politics raise a host of questions about his business interests, and the degree to which he speaks for himself or President-elect Donald Trump.
The United Kingdom, and its center-left Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who was elected in July, has become a particular preoccupation for Mr. Musk. In a series of incendiary posts, Mr. Musk has called on Mr. Starmer to resign over the U.K.’s handling of decades-old child sex-abuse cases and asked his 211 million followers, possibly in jest, if the United States should “liberate the people of Britain” from its government. Last summer, amid antimigrant riots in U.K. cities fueled by misinformation on X and other platforms about the identity of the alleged killer of three schoolchildren, Mr. Musk claimed that “civil war is inevitable” and lambasted Mr. Starmer.
Politicians have grown thick skins in the era of social media, where anyone can post criticisms. And Mr. Musk isn’t alone as an influential billionaire or online provocateur. But when the criticism is coming from a confidant of the incoming U.S. president and from the world’s richest man, it’s impossible to ignore.
For leaders in Europe, one question is whether Mr. Musk is telegraphing the views of Mr. Trump and laying the groundwork for a disruptive, “America First” foreign policy. But even if he’s simply speaking for himself, the reach of his posts on his digital platform, and the real-world effects they have already sparked, represent a rare concentration of power in one man’s fingers.
In a press conference Tuesday, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Musk while professing ignorance of his interventions in European politics. “You mean where he likes people that ... tended to be conservative? I don’t know the people. I can say Elon’s doing a good job. Very smart guy.”
Mr. Musk seems to be developing a playbook for bending political institutions to his will, as he showed last month during the chaotic passage of a spending bill in Congress when his posts helped sway the votes of Republican lawmakers.
By using his megaphone on X, formerly Twitter, in Europe, he’s exerting influence on democracies that are already under pressure from populists on both the left and right amid roiling voter disenchantment.
That leaves open the question of why he’s wielding such pressure at this time – and to what end. Some observers note that he and his companies stand to gain from any populist wave that may topple Europe’s liberal democracies. But his statements also suggest a sincere belief that disruption of Europe’s established political order is both necessary and inevitable.
“I think he and Trump [share] a skepticism of the Western alliance and a profound dislike for the softness and maybe the ‘wokeness’ of social democratic European politics. I think he wants to bring a different world into being. Now exactly what that world is going to look like is not clear. But he certainly wants a world in which he has a free hand to do what he wants,” says Gary Gerstle, a professor emeritus of American history at the University of Cambridge.
“He’s a great believer in disruption as being a key to a better future,” he adds.
Pushback from European leaders
On Monday, Mr. Starmer hit back at Mr. Musk after several days of trying to avoid a direct confrontation. He said in a speech that “a line had been crossed” in the public debate over the sex abuse scandal and that false online claims had led to threats of violence against elected officials. “Those that are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible, they’re not interested in victims,” he said. “They’re interested in themselves.”
The same day, French President Emmanuel Macron raised concerns about Mr. Musk’s support for AfD at a meeting of ambassadors, saying that it was unimaginable that the owner of one of the world’s largest social media networks “would intervene directly in elections, including in Germany.” Additional pushback came from Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, who said he was worried that an ultrawealthy foreign businessman would involve himself in internal politics. “This is not the way things should be between democracies and allies,” he said.
These leaders are under political pressure at home not to look weak as Mr. Trump prepares to take office, says Lewis Lukens, a retired U.S. ambassador who served in London during Mr. Trump’s first term. “They’re thinking, ‘I’ve got to stand up for myself at some point, and it’s easier to stand up against Elon Musk than it is to stand up against Donald Trump, just because Musk is not the incoming president,’” he says.
It’s hard to see exactly what Mr. Musk gains by antagonizing the leader of the ruling party in the U.K., given its hold on power over the next four years, says Mr. Lukens, a senior partner at Signum Global, a consultancy. For U.S. diplomats in London, it has made for awkward conversations with U.K. officials. “It’ll be more awkward for the people in the embassy once Donald Trump is inaugurated,” he says.
Mr. Macron didn’t name Mr. Musk. But he accused the social network owner of supporting “a new international reactionary network.” France’s government has been in turmoil since Mr. Macron called snap parliamentary elections last July, which led to deadlock and hollowed out centrist parties while strengthening his right-wing rival, Marine Le Pen.
To populists like Ms. Le Pen, Mr. Trump’s resurgent MAGA movement is a beacon across the Atlantic and a battering ram against liberal elites at home. “There is a growing contingency of Trumpian Europeans, who see this as an opportunity,” says Marietje Schaake, a former Dutch lawmaker in the European Parliament. “They see it as vindication that Trump is strong, and they embrace Musk’s voice as a sort of antiestablishment attack that they can [ride] on.”
In the U.K., Mr. Musk has thrown his support behind the right-wing Reform party led by Nigel Farage, a Trump ally. Mr. Farage said recently that Mr. Musk was prepared to donate to his party, which only has a handful of members of Parliament, but is challenging the center-right Conservative Party, the country’s oldest, which lost power last year in a landslide defeat to Mr. Starmer’s Labour Party.
Under U.K. law, nonvoters can’t donate to parties. But U.K.-registered companies can give unlimited amounts, although there are restrictions on how much can be spent on campaigns. Donations of more than £500 ($625) must also be reported to the Electoral Commission, which publishes information on any contributions of more than £11,180 (about $14,000).
A mission to challenge the status quo
Mr. Musk’s enthusiasm for right-wing parties across Europe maps onto his personal, political, and business interests.
In addition to owning X, he is the chief executive of Tesla, which builds electric vehicles in Germany. In his recent opinion article, he cited this investment as a reason for his endorsement of AfD, which, in addition to opposing immigration, promotes free markets and lower taxes, and advocates that Germany abandon the European Union’s common currency. Mr. Musk has claimed that Germany is on the verge of “economic and cultural collapse.”
His rocket company, SpaceX, is also seeking access to European markets, including in Italy, whose prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, met with Mr. Trump last week at Mar-a-Lago. A debate has since broken out in Italy over Mr. Musk’s offer to sell that country a satellite communications system and whether Ms. Meloni was currying favor with Mr. Trump’s ally, which she denies.
Quid pro quos, in which donors to a candidate are rewarded with political support for their company to win contracts, aren’t new. But what Mr. Musk brings to the table, with his control of X and his power to shape political debate, is more novel.
In Europe, he faces increased scrutiny from regulators under the EU’s Digital Services Act, which requires digital platforms to prevent and remove harmful and illegal content. Last year, X was cited for breaching the act after a preliminary inquiry and faces possible fines. The U.K. has also introduced tougher curbs on social media networks that will take effect this year.
Mr. Musk has a clear interest in weakening the EU’s ability to regulate global tech companies and may be betting that the Trump administration will win concessions for X in trade talks with the 27-member bloc, says Ms. Schaake, a fellow at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center. Other U.S. tech giants also want to resist any global trend toward greater scrutiny of their platforms.
On Tuesday, Meta owner Mark Zuckerberg announced that he was ending fact-checking of posts in favor of crowdsourced monitoring. He also took aim at European regulators and said Meta, the parent company of Facebook, will “work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world going after American companies and pushing to censor more.”
Some analysts argue that Mr. Musk’s agenda appears broader than simply fighting regulations. The political causes and parties he supports aren’t simply aligned with his economic views, but are challenging the status quo in their societies. “He’s supporting antidemocratic and even fascist voices,” Ms. Schaake says.
This includes Tommy Robinson, a far-right street activist in the U.K. who is currently in jail for contempt of court after losing a libel suit to a Syrian refugee. Mr. Musk has called for his release and fallen out with Mr. Farage, who has tried to distance his party from Mr. Robinson, whose position on the fringes of U.K. politics is analogous to that of the Proud Boys.
Ultimately, Mr. Musk’s ideological strategy may outweigh his short-term commercial interests in lobbying politicians and regulators, says Professor Gerstle, now a fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. Picking fights with center-left politicians across Europe and leveraging social media as a disrupter advances a broader goal.
“I think what he has in his sights is an attack on liberal democracy and an effort to delegitimize liberal democratic governments in favor of far-right political forces,” he says.
Where Musk stays quiet
Critics note that Mr. Musk’s championing of human rights abroad is selective. While posting relentlessly about grooming gangs and child abuse in the U.K., he has stayed silent on politics in Communist-ruled China, where Tesla owns a plant. He also steers clear of criticisms of Russia’s authoritarian system and its troops’ abduction of Ukrainian children.
His attacks on Mr. Starmer stem from the U.K.’s past failure to crack down on child-grooming gangs led by British Pakistani men in several northern cities. At the time, Mr. Starmer was the chief public prosecutor. But there’s no evidence that Mr. Starmer played any role in the failure – and once it came to light, he made the prosecution of child sexual abuse a priority.
By latching onto the decade-old controversy over the grooming gangs, whose victims were white girls whose complaints were allegedly ignored by local officials reluctant to appear racist, Mr. Musk is scratching a familiar right-wing itch. On platforms like X, conspiracies about liberal elites involved in child sex trafficking and covering up their abuses have proliferated and cross-fertilized with other MAGA causes.
But there may be another reason for his focus on child abuse, says Ms. Schaake: It gets clicks.
“It may just be the best instrument that he can think of,” she says. “According to the data that he has a lot of access to, this is what makes people angry, makes them tick, makes them vote.”
Katie Marie Davies contributed to this report from Manchester, England.
