Having helped Donald Trump win re-election in the United States, Elon Musk has switched his attention to the European electoral landscape, where his provocations of the political establishment have been delighting Europe’s far-right. A sampler of the kind of “Musketeering“ that has put European politicians en garde includes his endorsement of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and his demand for the release of imprisoned British anti-Islam extremist Tommy Robinson. Then there’s his attack on UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who Musk described as an evil tyrant who should be jailed.
The Tesla and Space X chief’s remarks on X, his social network, are notorious for their acerbically abusive language — politicians called “stupid cretin“ and “snivelling cowards“ — plus his retweets of far-right and anti-immigrant diatribes.
Speaking to the AP news agency, Andrew Chadwick, professor of political communication at Loughborough University, compared Musk’s X postings to how “old-style“ newspaper moguls once promulgated their political views. “We’ve seen Musk start to align himself much more obviously with an international movement of the far right,“ Chadwick said.
“If you look at the kinds of people who Musk himself is boosting on his platform … he’s increasingly started to assemble a group of different right-wing influencers, many of them with large followings, and presenting their evidence as a basis for his interventions into European politics.”
With Germany facing an election on 23 February, following the collapse of centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz‘s three-party coalition government, Musk wrote on X: “Only the AfD can save Germany”. AfD is being monitored by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency for suspected extremism.
He reiterated his call for support for the AfD in an article for the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, claiming that Germany is “teetering on the edge of economic and cultural collapse.” This week Musk is scheduled to have a live chat on X with the AfD co-leader Alice Weidel.
Chancellor Scholz’s response exemplifies the quandary European politicians face when confronting Musk’s interventions — should they ignore and let them go unchallenged, or, by responding, risk amplifying the exchange? Scholz has opted for a “stay cool“ approach when it comes to personal attacks, but sees Musk’s involvement in German politics as worrying. In his New Year message, Scholz stressed that Germany’s way forward would be decided by German voters, not “by the owners of social media channels”.
Just this week, France’s President Emmanuel Macron cautioned about how unchecked power in the hands of tech billionaires posed the risk of destabilizing democratic institutions. “Who could have imagined, 10 years ago, that the owner of one of the world’s largest social networks would intervene directly in elections, including in Germany?” he asked.
British politics have featured more and more in Musk’s comments since the election of the Labour Party in July. He has called Prime Minister Starmer an “evil“ leader presiding over a “tyrannical police state.“ in remarks related to a series of child sexual abuse cases in northern England towns several years ago, where groups of men, mostly of Pakistani background, were tried for grooming and abusing dozens of mostly white girls. Far-right activists cited the cases in an effort to link child abuse to immigration and Islam.
Musk claims Starmer failed to bring the perpetrators to justice when he served as England’s Director of Public Prosecutions between 2008 and 2013 — a charge Starmer strongly denies. “Starmer must go and he must face charges for his complicity in the worst mass crime in the history of Britain,” Musk tweeted.
Starmer has strongly denied Musk’s claims. On Monday, Starmer condemned “lies and misinformation“ and accused Britain’s Conservative politicians who were reiterating some of Musk’s remarks of “amplifying what the far right are saying.“ The Prime Minister said that while he enjoyed “the cut and thrust of politics, the robust debate that we must have ….[has] got to be based on facts and truth, not on lies.”
Starmer faces calls for sterner British laws to stem foreign interference. Meanwhile, many governments around the world are coming under pressure to leave X. Both the U.K. and German governments say they have no plans to quit the platform. European authorities are investigating X in their attempts to curb hatred, disinformation and other toxic content on social media. The European Union has launched infringement proceedings against X under the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA).
Musk, who is opposed to efforts to regulate social media and has compared the UK’s attempts to eliminate misinformation through its Online Safety Act to censorship in the Soviet Union, faces risks of his own. His comments are being watched closely by Tesla investors concerned that he could be turning off car buyers who disagree with his politics. New registrations in Europe for Musk’s electronic vehicles fell 13% in the first nine months of 2023, according to auto researcher Jato Dynamics. In Germany, Tesla registrations dropped 44%.
