A rchive Date
[ 12-01-2025 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20250108-europe-s-leaders-have-had-enough-of-musk-s-meddling-but-can-they-stop-him
Europe’s leaders have had enough of Musk’s meddling, but can they stop him?
Elon Musk’s invective against major European leaders and his support for right-wing, eurosceptic parties peaked this week, sparking warnings about the US tech billionaire’s intervention in the continent’s democratic institutions. Now EU policy experts are mulling legal measures to rein him in
By: Leela JACINTO 08/01/2025
The first Monday of the new year got off to a choppy start, with European leaders accusing a billionaire citizen of a friendly nation of intervening in the continent’s democratic processes.
As the countdown to Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration hits the final stretch, his close ally Elon Musk has already triggered transatlantic alarms, jolting politicians and policy advisors to prepare for the challenges of a second Trump presidency.
In his annual foreign policy address Monday, Emmanuel Macron did not name Musk directly, but the French president didn’t mince his words when summarising the threat posed by the world’s wealthiest man to Europe’s democratic institutions.
"Ten years ago, who could have imagined it if we had been told that the owner of one of the largest social networks in the world would support a new international reactionary movement and intervene directly in elections, including in Germany," Macron told French ambassadors gathered in Paris.
Macron’s comments followed German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s condemnation of Musk’s efforts to get involved in his country’s upcoming general elections by endorsing the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
In the UK, Prime Minister Keir Starmer had to respond to Musk’s almost daily tirades on a decades-old British child protection scandal, declaring “a line has been crossed”. The owner of social media platform X has long raged against the Labour prime minister, calling for Starmer to step down and for America to “liberate” Britain. But when Musk called a Labour parliamentarian and former minister a “rape genocide apologist”, Starmer issued a rebuke, calling on the X boss to stop "spreading lies and misinformation".
Further north, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store also added his voice to the chorus of warnings. "I find 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," he said. "It is not the way things should happen between democracies and allies."
The rise of Musk – the head of X, rocket company SpaceX and electric car giant Tesla – in Trump’s inner circle has left European policy experts scrambling to plan for what could happen between democracies and allies in the next four years. While Trump’s return to the White House came as no surprise, his embrace of a social media mogul who has flamboyantly turned his right-wing sights on the continent poses a challenge for European leaders.
Private citizen or public official?
The gauntlet was thrown down shortly after Trump’s re-election, when the Republican president-elect named Musk and entrepreneur-politician Vivek Ramaswamy co-leaders of what he called the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE). Amid questions over whether the new DOGE would be an official government department, the consensus in mainstream news organisations was that Musk would likely operate “outside the confines of government”.
The ambiguity has opened a debate over whether Musk should be viewed as operating in a private or public capacity and what, if any, are the implications.
“The point is that there is a limit to where it can go,” said Jérôme Barbier, former head of cybersecurity at the Paris Peace Forum on FRANCE 24’s The Debate. “There is a possibility that Elon Musk is enjoying his golden moment. Starting after inauguration day, either he takes a position in the US administration and there, even legally speaking, under US law, he will not be able to steer and conduct his own companies,” said Barbier. “And if he doesn't take office, his influence disappears in part.”
But Marietje Schaake, a former Dutch MEP and fellow at Stanford University’s Cyber Security Center, cautions against viewing Musk as a transitory threat. “His role now – as designate leader of this Department of Government Efficiency without taking an official position – is deliberate, because it allows him to keep control over his companies to always say, ‘Oh no, but I'm not acting in a formal capacity’, while of course people will act on what he says,” she explained on The Debate.
“Elon Musk runs a business empire. He is now a very close advisor to Trump. And so we must also consider what he says in his commentary and support for various European politicians on the far right and fascist side of the spectrum as being condoned by the next US president,” she added.
In Musk’s case, the convergence of business and political interests, in addition to allegations of meddling in European democratic processes requires strong action across the Atlantic, Schaake believes. European leaders would be ill-advised to rely solely on US vetting processes to manage the threat, she maintained.
“It's essential that we also look at whether there are legal guardrails that he has now crossed and whether there should be implications for this kind of behavior,” said Schaake, warning that Trump’s second presidency will see a “completely different US government. We are now dealing with a president who does not respect the checks and balances.”
Whether he’s in government or serving in an advisory capacity, Musk’s intentions are as clear as his targets, said Schaake. “If your interest is to not be regulated, to have as few rules as possible to deal with, then the EU is a menace to you. And so, in that sense, a weaker EU, a fragmented EU, a more nationalist EU, is in Elon Musk's interest,” she maintained.
A new digital law points the way
Undermining European unity as a geopolitical goal has been associated in recent years with critics and rivals of the West, such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping. The shock in many European capitals over the past few months has been the extent to which Musk appears to have taken a page out of Putin’s playbook by supporting right-wing, eurosceptic parties.
The British political establishment was rattled last month when Brexit cheerleader Nigel Farage from the anti-immigration Reform UK party emerged from a meeting with Musk at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida with headline news. Speaking to reporters, Farage confirmed that talks were under way about Musk making a hefty donation to Reform UK.
The bromance hit a bump this weekend, when Musk called for Farage to be replaced as Reform UK head over the British politician’s failure to support a jailed anti-Islam extremist. But by Tuesday, Farage was playing down the differences, insisting he was ready to build bridges with Musk.
In Germany, Musk’s support for far-right politicians ahead of the high-stakes February 23 elections raised eyebrows last week when the tech billionaire announced that he will be hosting a live chat on X with AfD chief Alice Weidel.
The Musk-Weidel live chat, set for Thursday, has led EU officials to examine if the event breaches the bloc’s landmark online content law, the Digital Services Act (DSA).
In a post on X, France’s former European commissioner, Thierry Breton, reminded Weidel that the DSA includes measures to “protect our democratic rules against illegal or misbehavior during election times”.
At a press briefing in Brussels, the EU's digital spokesman said the live discussion on X was not a violation of the DSA. "Nothing in the DSA prohibits the owner of a platform or anyone to host a live stream," said Thomas Regnier. "Mr. Musk is allowed to express his personal views, his political opinions in the EU online and offline."
Musk’s X platform is already under investigation under the DSA regarding how it tackles the spread of illegal content and information manipulation.
The EU would "carefully" assess Thursday’s live stream, Regnier added, to assess if it could be included in the bloc’s current investigation if any risks are identified.
The devil lies in the algorithmic detail.
While the DSA safeguards freedom of expression, several experts note that in Musk’s case, the devil could lie in the algorithmic detail.
“The new law makes sure that there can be more transparency, and that’s really what is lacking. So we just don't know. We don't have the ability to do enough independent research of how various algorithmic settings impact the reach of various voices on X, and whether Musk, for example, is preferring himself and other like-minded voices in ways that are unacceptable,” said Schaake.
“I would say that the legal process, the enforcement of the Digital Services Act, should run its course. It is important that on the EU level, also, the European Commission steps up and looks at whether what Elon Musk is doing is within or outside of the boundaries of the law,” she added.
If Musk is found to have breached the DSA, he could face fines of up to 6% of global turnover, or even temporary blocks of his digital platform.
But Felix Kartte, a senior fellow at the Berlin-based Mercator Foundation, warns that the European Commission must “tread with caution” with the enforcement of the law, noting that a 6% fine is “peanuts” for the world’s richest man.
“That's small money for him. It doesn't mean that this would even dissuade him from continuing to use X to interfere in democracy here in Europe. And then we might actually see an escalation, with a showdown in the end, where the only option that the EU has left is to block or shut down X altogether,” said Kartte.
A shutdown of X could trigger “justified” concerns over freedom of speech and other fundamental rights, noted Kartte. “Any regulatory strategy needs to be well thought through, and it needs to have broad political backing from EU member states in order to really make sense,” he added.
A matter of political will
Political will is set to become a critical ingredient in the next four years if Europe has to take on the challenge posed by a billionaire who owns X as well as SpaceX.
In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s surprise Saturday night meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago reopened a controversy over a 1.5 billion euro deal between Rome and Starlink, which is part of SpaceX.
Musk on Monday said he was ready to provide Italy with secure communication services after Meloni denied that the issue had come up during her meeting with Trump.
Amid an opposition outcry, representatives of Italy's main opposition party have called on the government to provide more details in parliament over any potential Starlink defence contract.
“I think the Musk issue will not be solved only by legal means, it needs to have political backing by member states, and significantly by the larger member states,” said Barbier, noting that “most of Musk’s wealth comes from the defence industry. So clearly, this needs political will among some member states”.
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