WASHINGTON, DC – Rich and powerful personalities have always been a part of politics. Elon Musk’s presence on the global stage represents a new iteration of how the monied class can exert pressure on the political one.
Having positioned himself in the next Trump administration, Musk’s influence has quickly spread across the Atlantic. That should be a worrying development for US allies, particularly in Europe, where domestic politics are already vulnerable to destabilisation.
“He’s like a knife,” Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor of management at Yale University, tells The Parliament. “A knife can be used to cut your dinner food, or it can be used to murder somebody.”
How Musk uses that knife is causing renewed consternation. Running the social media company X, formerly Twitter, provides him with a global platform to influence political systems and shake up societies. When Musk bought Twitter in 2022 for $44bn, he was widely derided for a bad business decision given the platform’s poor financial state.
In retrospect, it seems he was after something more than just the bottom line.
Musk’s rise from entrepreneur to world’s richest man has been decades in the making. He comes from a wealthy South African family, which provided him the means to invest in new business ventures. After founding several software and financial services companies early on, he was in the right place at the right time to take a leading role in companies like Tesla.
Leveraging his connections with high-profile sectors like self-driving cars and commercial space exploration, Musk has turned his attention to a new vector of power: politics.
No stranger to making controversial or misleading statements – whether spreading misinformation during the pandemic or juicing crypto markets he has invested in – it was only a short step to officially backing Donald Trump a few months before the election.
Growing political power
Musk, an immigrant from South Africa, donated more than $250m to the Trump campaign. He was behind a pro-Trump super PAC (political action committee, a fundraising tool for political candidates and issues in the US) and launched a scheme offering cash to voters who agreed to sign PAC-affiliated petitions.
When Trump won, he returned the favour by placing Musk at the helm of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk will lead this newly established, quasi-official department alongside fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy. Tasked with cutting bureaucracy, the two have pledged to slash $2tn in federal spending – about 30 per cent of 2024 expenditures.
With X as his bullhorn, Musk has amplified Trump’s agenda. He supported Trump’s position in last month’s looming government shutdown, urging lawmakers to reject a temporary funding bill unless it included provisions to scrap the debt ceiling. Congress passed the bill anyway, averting a Christmas-time federal work stoppage.
Musk’s more than 210 million X followers are bombarded with posts from the billionaire which can range from the banal to the outlandish to the conspiratorial. Increasingly, it seems, he has an opinion about everything.
Targeting European allies
Most recently, Musk has turned his attention to European politics. He injected himself into Germany’s early election campaign, with the vote scheduled for late February, by criticising Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), and explicitly backing the far-right party, Alternative for Germany (AfD).
In an opinion piece for Germany’s conservative Die Welt newspaper, he called the AfD the “last spark of hope” for the country. His interview with AfD co-leader Alice Weidel, which EU regulators were watching for possible infringement of content moderation rules, went to lengths to deny the party’s far-right designation, but Weidel called Adolf Hitler a “communist” — a long-running myth in far-right circles.
Only a few weeks earlier, Weidel was one of several far-right figures to call the suspect in the Magdeburg Christmas market attack an “Islamist,” when authorities had designated him a far-right extremist.
“Anyone who tries to influence our election from outside,” Saskia Esken, co-leader of the SPD, said in a statement referring to Musk, “must expect our tough resistance.”
It remains unclear what European officials can do in response. Musk increasingly positions himself as a “power player,” as political commentator Patrick Maguire described the billionaire in an article for The Times.
That was in reference to politics in the United Kingdom, where Musk has called for the ouster of Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Yale’s Sonnenfeld, who has advised Republican and Democratic presidents, sees a layer of hypocrisy in Musk’s actions.
“What he does is foreign election interference, which he resents when it happens here,” he says. “He shouldn’t violate those norms of responsible conduct regarding other countries.”
Since Musk operates in a grey zone between public and private figure, his statements are largely protected by free speech laws, despite his claims that freedom of expression is under attack. His influence rises well above that of an average citizen, much like legendary oligarchs from a bygone era, such as JP Morgan and William Randolph Hearst. More than a century ago, they used their respective financial and media clout to steer policy and benefit their business interests.
Policy goals
As the head of several companies, Musk can do the same. Watchdog groups have raised concern about possible conflicts of interest. Legally speaking, money is considered a form of speech in the US and therefore constitutionally protected. This has given rise to more billionaire political influence.
A Supreme Court ruling last year allows public officials to accept gifts for official acts that they have already taken. Transparency groups argue that this opens the door to legalising bribery.
Like Trump himself, it is unclear where Musk’s business dealings end and his role as a public official begins, but it is unlikely Musk will become an official part of the executive branch. That will allow him to skirt transparency and ethics rules.
Musk has been vague about any specific wish list, but his distaste for regulation and the public sector is clear, even though companies of his, such as SpaceX, rely largely on government work.
The EU could be forced to perform a delicate balancing act, as it moves to protect its citizens from the negative consequences of Musk’s social media and other tech plans, without alienating its most important ally. Vice President-elect JD Vance has already expressed his willingness to drop US support for NATO if the EU further regulates X.
In October, the European Commission concluded that X is “not an important gateway for business users to reach end users” and therefore can avoid some kinds of EU oversight. Recent developments, however, have given regulators reason to give X and Musk a closer look.
Efforts to form a united front against Musk’s meddling may be challenging for the EU, as some member states are more ready to embrace his worldview and business acumen than others.
Italian Prime Minister Georgio Meloni, who recently visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, is personally close to Musk. Italy may soon sign a €1.5bn deal with SpaceX for telecom security services. In Germany, politicians have championed a Tesla factory outside Berlin, citing the high-tech jobs it has created.
That kind of public-private courting now runs up against Musk’s illiberal and, at times, conspiratorial viewpoints, which several European officials are now calling out as a threat to their societies.
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Publish date : 2025-01-10 05:17:00
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