Plenty of Europeans were dreading the re-election of Donald Trump. But his return to the White House is now causing alarm in unexpected ways. In recent weeks it has begun to seem that Europe’s democracies face a greater threat than Trump himself, in the form of the “broligarchs” – the tech billionaires surfing on Donald Trump’s coattails, apparently with an eye to their business interests. Foremost among them, Elon Musk (of Tesla and Space X) and Mark Zuckerberg (Meta).
“A far-right wind is blowing across the Atlantic”, writes Nathalie Tocci in the The Guardian. The Italian political scientist is sanguine about Europe’s prospects:
“While the rise of the populist right in Europe predated Donald Trump’s re-election, far-right parties, leaders and governments across Europe are being bolstered by his imminent return to power, and by Elon Musk’s rising political star. There is some hope that Trump’s presidency could have a unifying effect on Europe – and on issues such as defence policy, I believe it might. […] But in areas such as trade, technology and space, there is a much higher chance that a more nationalistic Europe, confronted by a predatory divide-and-rule US, will fragment rather than stick together. And this is exactly what the Trump-Musk axis seems to be after.”
Today’s political landscape is particularly favourable to a Trumpist ascendancy, notes Tocci. Populist and far-right parties are already in power in Sweden, Finland, Croatia, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary. They are at the door in Romania and Czechia, and even France looks vulnerable.
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Elon Musk is putting all his media firepower at the service of his reactionary political agenda. He has flooded X, which he bought in 2022, with posts calling for the resignation of the British Labour prime minister Keir Starmer. Musk has baselessly alleged that Starmer covered up a major child-abuse scandal during his tenure as the UK’s chief public prosecutor between 2008 and 2013. The scandal was well known but Musk appears to have just discovered it, notes Elizabeth Pearson, a terrorism specialist, in The Conversation:
“In a series of posts on X, Musk has politicised these crimes to denounce Prime Minister Keir Starmer as ‘demonic’, and to call for a new general election in the UK. [Musk] has money and power in social networks, but he’s a ‘tech bro’, a geek. By exploiting the horror of the British child sex abuse scandals, he has tried to present himself as a protector of women, a hero of the forgotten. He has amplified a far-right political position and the voices of far-right actors who he believes embody it.”
In an editorial on the subject, The Independent is blunt: “The problem with Elon Musk and his increasingly inflammatory interventions on what used to be called Twitter, as with many ultra-rich tycoons in the past, is that nothing he says holds water.” While conceding that Musk is “brilliant and protean in his talents”, The Independent offers a scathing judgement on the billionaire’s apparent dissipation:
“[Musk has] neither the time nor the experience to understand what happened during the prostitution gang scandal in England, which broke some fifteen years ago. […] Ironically, Mr Musk’s latest activities seem to be an eloquent case study in what happens when a person spends too much time on social media, sincerely believes it to be a reliable source of information and analysis, and falls prey to easily refutable conspiracy theories, misinformation and disinformation. As a ‘free speech absolutist’, he is not helping his cause by propagating dangerous myths. He seems to have no one around him to impose a degree of restraint. […] At the risk of provoking a diplomatic incident, Sir Keir was right to defend his record […] against these unprecedented and surprisingly ill-advised attacks. The billionaire and the X gang have, as the Prime Minister put it, ‘crossed the line’.”
In parallel to his attacks on leftist and centrist leaders, Musk is openly supporting those of the far right. After repeatedly asserting that “only the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) can save Germany”, on 9 January he conducted a complaisant interview lasting over an hour with the leader of that party, Alice Weidel.
The event was watched live by nearly 200,000 people. The German authorities considered that it counted as part of the AfD’s election campaign, and even potentially as an illegal political donation. For Der Tagesspiegel, the tech billionaire’s attacks undoubtedly constitute “interference in the election campaign”. This presents politicians with a dilemma, notes Daniel Friedrich Sturm in the same Berlin daily. To condemn Musk’s interference in the election campaign is to draw more attention to the AfD, but at the same time it is hard to simply ignore his attacks on German democracy.
“The AfD’s new media power is terrifying”, concurs Caspar Schwietering, still in Der Tagesspiegel. “For many years now, the far-right party has been skilfully using social media for propaganda purposes. Now the richest man in the world is also supporting the party.” Musk’s attitude brings back dark memories, he says:
“The rightwing libertarian is using his hold on the market and his influence to support the AfD in the election campaign. It’s reminiscent of the Weimar Republic. Back then, the newspapers of Alfred Hugenberg, the leader of the national-conservative DNVP party, dominated the press and disseminated nationalist and anti-democratic propaganda.”
Schwietering describes Alice Weidel’s performance as “mediocre”, pointing to her comment that Adolf Hitler was a “communist” because of his nationalisations. He suggests that “one lesson to be learned from this interview is that it might be interesting for the candidates of the democratic parties to confront Weidel directly” – a debate format that populists tend to avoid. And he sees an even more important lesson: “social media must not be left to the enemies of democracy. Democratic parties […] have a duty to put forward attractive proposals.”
Cas Mudde was right in his predictions for 2025. Trump is president, Europe is on its own, and Europeans must now learn to stand on their own two feet. The solitude is compounded by the warm welcome that Trump may receive outside Europe:
“Many people in the world beyond Europe welcome Trump’s arrival, saying it will be good for their country, for world peace, and specifically for achieving peace in Ukraine and the Middle East. Majorities believe all these things in India and Saudi Arabia, and majorities or pluralities – depending on the specific question – in China, Brazil, South Africa and Russia.”
These were the findings of a study carried out by the European Council on Foreign Relations in collaboration with Oxford University. The historian Timothy Garton Ash presents a summary of it in the Guardian.
Elon Musk’s gambit may boost Europe’s far right, but it also risks provoking a backlash. As the independent outlet Basta! puts it: “Since the US elections, there has been a massive departure from platform X, even greater than at the time of the Twitter takeover in 2022. Media outlets, civil-society groups and, above all, millions of citizens have left the platform.” For our part, we at Voxeurop have decided to join the HelloQuitteX movement. We will stop updating our X accounts (there is one per language) on 20 January 2025, the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration.
In partnership with Display Europe, cofunded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Directorate‑General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
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Publish date : 2025-01-20 02:56:00
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