ROME — Elon Musk is proving the ultimate multitasker: As he emerges as a central figure — hero or villain — in President Trump’s campaign to transform the federal government in Washington, he’s found time to make a slew of new fans and detractors for himself across the Atlantic as well.
As his activism and influence grow, the world’s richest man has seen mainstream European political leaders, media, nongovernmental groups and student organizations line up to criticize him and his actions. But, as in Washington, none of it so far seems to be slowing him down.
The billionaire entrepreneur has weighed in on fraught domestic political controversies in some of Europe’s biggest traditional powers in recent weeks, drawing both praises and howls of protest for his efforts.
Mr. Musk has had a longstanding friendship with Italy’s conservative prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. Ms. Meloni has had her own high-profile clashes with the European establishment — most notably over EU policies on mass migration — yet her 2-year-old government now appears to be among the most stable in Europe.
The 53-year-old billionaire owner of Tesla, the social media site X, and SpaceX, whose endorsement and financial muscle helped propel Mr. Trump to a second term in the White House, has generated enormous controversy weighing in on the upcoming elections in Germany, Europe’s largest economy.
German voters will go to the polls Feb. 23 to elect the 630 members of the Bundestag, with center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz — no fan of Mr. Musk — trailing in the polls to a center-right rival. Mr. Musk has been vocal in his support for Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which until recently had been a far-right fringe group excluded from the political mainstream because of its uncomfortable connections to the country’s Nazi past.
But polls show that with Mr. Musk’s support, the AfD is increasingly seen as legitimate and is climbing in opinion polls. Mr. Musk has used his social media platform to broadcast talks with AfD’s polarizing leader, Alice Weidel, and called for Germans to “move beyond the past” — a remark that earned him a public rebuke from Mr. Scholz.
Mr. Musk’s efforts to promote Ms. Weidel and “right-wing politicians all over Europe,” Mr. Scholz told journalists in Berlin late last month, are “really disgusting. It is not good for the democratic development in all [of] the European Union.”
It’s not just the big Western European powers who have criticized Mr. Musk’s interventions.
Mr. Musk’s behavior was “troubling and far from amusing,” Greek Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis told Parapolitika Radio in an interview recently, The Associated Press reported.
“Someone cannot simply use their platform, wealth and connections to try to dictate how governments are formed in each nation,” the minister said. “This is becoming increasingly dangerous.”
Double-edged sword
Analysts say Mr. Musk’s efforts are proving a double-edged sword in Europe, sparking a backlash even as conservative nationalist parties have scored electoral gains in countries across the bloc.
“In the countries where he weighs in on the political process, in Italy, in Germany, in the U.K., most people don’t approve of Musk getting involved,” Maria Rossi of the Italian polling form Opinioni told The Washington Times. “But among those who admire him, his support is very strong, and even among nonsupporters it seems like Musk’s backing can legitimize ideas or movements that might have been considered marginal.”
AfD’s rise is probably the nail in the coffin for the government of Mr. Scholz, who three years ago followed Chancellor Angela Merkel’s 16-year tenure. The question ahead of the country’s hard-to-predict national election is whether the AfD will gain enough support to force itself into a role as a coalition partner in what is likely to be a new conservative government.
Mr. Scholz is far from the only leader to lash out at Mr. Musk, who has also earned the ire of U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer. After a barrage of attacks on his government, Mr. Starmer called Mr. Musk a peddler of “lies and misinformation.” Mr. Musk responded by asking his millions of X followers whether the U.S. “should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government.”
Mr. Musk has refused to back down even though there are signs his outspokenness may be costing him money: Sales of his electric vehicle Tesla were down in a number of European markets in January, even as EV sales and new registrations overall on the continent were up: U.K. Tesla sales fell nearly 12% for months, while the percentage drop in France, Sweden and the Netherlands was three times as severe.
An ally in Italy
In Italy, Italian President Sergio Mattarella, the country’s head of state, echoed other leading EU figures last November when he said that Mr. Musk should “stop meddling in Italian affairs,” and Elly Schlein, the main center-left opposition leader in the country, warned that Mr. Musk’s wealth could not buy support in Italy as she said it has in other countries.
“Italy does not sell out,” Ms. Schlein said.
In January, a group of Italian students even hung Mr. Musk in effigy at the same Milan square where the corpse of Italy’s Fascist leader Benito Mussolini was hung in 1945.
But the difference between Italy and the other European countries is that in Italy Mr. Musk has the strong support of the government’s top official, Ms. Meloni, who has repeatedly defended Mr. Musk. “Is the problem that he is rich and influential, or that he’s not left-wing?” she asked at a press conference in January.
And Mr. Musk’s close personal and ideological ties to Mr. Trump — who has a long history of criticizing the European Union — has raised questions of whether the billionaire’s uninvited commentary on divisive issues in Europe isn’t part of a larger plan from Washington.
“Musk’s underlying intention appears to be the fragmentation of the EU,” Asma Mhalla, a researcher in digital policy at the Paris-based School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), wrote in a recent symposium on the Musk-Europe dynamic on the Carnegie Endowment’s “Strategic Europe” blog.
“The American agenda aims at turning Europe into a vassalized market where tech regulations lose their effectiveness under the threat of commercial coercion,” she wrote. “This raises a critical question: Is Musk acting as a proxy for the new U.S. administration? The ambiguity is profound, yet he has never been publicly disavowed by Donald Trump.”
According to Riccardo Puglisi, an economist with Italy’s University of Pavia, there is probably a legitimate connection between Mr. Musk and Ms. Meloni, who share an affinity for the same literature (they are both big fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” series), and both worry about issues such as falling birth rates, mass migration, and promoting innovation.
“I think both of them see themselves as someone who can take care of business, who can get things done,” Mr. Puglisi, a frequent commentator, said in an interview. “The things they get done might seem extreme to some, but that doesn’t detract from their ability to deliver.”