On the one hand is Thierry Breton: Frenchman and professional fool. On top of that, he is European commissioner for the internal market. On the other hand is Elon Musk: a madman with a lot of talent and a great sense of humor.
Musk won an interview with Donald Trump that all the world’s newspapers would have killed for. As soon as Breton saw that Musk would interview Trump, he sent him a mile-long open letter full of threats: “We are monitoring the potential risks in the EU associated with the dissemination of content that may incite violence, hate and racism in conjunction with major political — or societal — events around the world, including debates and interviews in the context of elections,” he wrote. Breton has been trying for years to take down Trump, Musk, Orban, Le Pen, and so many others, but he has only reinforced them.
He is the typical European commissioner; that is, he represents everything that goes wrong in the EU. He has now been milling around in public office for more than 20 years, having previously flitted around in different positions in private enterprise, although always staying very close to political power and public money. His last great feat in the private sector was at Atos, a global communications giant that went public in 2017. Breton was its CEO from 2008 to 2019. When in 2019 Breton stepped down as the company’s CEO, Atos was three times larger than when he arrived, but its viability hung in the balance, as it needed a miracle to avoid bankruptcy. Brilliant management. Under Breton’s leadership, Atos won numerous succulent European public contracts.
The main obsession of this French epistolary genius is to put an end to freedom on Twitter and Facebook with the excuse of alleged disinformation. He has also criticized TikTok, but not because of the risk of espionage from the Chinese communist regime, but rather because it is too addictive for children. That gives you an idea of his type. When the Hungarian government refused a concession to a radio station opposing Orban, Breton went ballistic. And that’s precisely what he wants to do with Elon Musk, X and Donald Trump. His obsession with Trump goes back a long way. When social networks suspended the former president’s accounts in 2021, Breton celebrated.
In theory, Breton and Musk should be friends. Musk’s dark area is his push for the hated electric vehicle, and Breton’s main reverie is that gasoline cars will disappear. He wanted to ban them across the EU by 2035 and was forced into an extension to avoid wrecking 600,000 jobs. When Meloni criticized these measures, Breton, reaching insurmountable heights of cynicism, said that this is a decision taken by “the European people,” as if anyone had ever asked us about this question before.
But where you’re going to meet the real Breton (and all the Bretons flooding Ursula von der Leyen’s European Commission) is in the fine print of this car issue: he decided to ban the sale of combustion cars from 2030… but only if the buyer is European. Thus, gasoline-powered cars can continue to be manufactured as long as they are sold outside of the EU. In other words, it will mean that the European citizen will be paying a lot of money for a crappy electric car, and the African citizen buying big gasoline cars at ridiculous prices and without anyone to complain about his behavior. That’s how Breton saves the planet; that’s how the EU works. Thanks to the idiots in Brussels, we will have to become Senegalese nationals in order to live in freedom. In Europe, they will give us shelter, health, and economic aid, and in Africa they will let us drive the car we want. It’s a win-win situation.
I think by now that you’ve probably guessed that, if I am to position myself in this Musk–Breton contest, I’m on Elon’s team.
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