It's an argument that Elon Musk likes to repeat: Traditional media outlets are dying, and his social media platform X is, he claims, now the world's best source of information. So, logically, the American multi-billionaire learns about European news through X. Here's just one example: Until 2023, even though a major Tesla factory is located in Germany, the country was not something Musk paid great attention to. In 10 years, he had posted only a handful of tweets about the country, and in 2020, on his return from a "great trip to Germany," he was still congratulating himself on the "support from [the German] government & people" he had received for his projects.

Then, on September 29, 2023, his tone changed radically: The multi-billionaire got into a heated argument, on the social media network he had bought the year before, with the German Federal Foreign Office. The subject? Boats chartered by German associations, used to rescue migrants in the Mediterranean, an issue that Musk seemed to have only just discovered, via a message, which he cited, from an account named "RadioGenoa."

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