What's Elon Musk's agenda with Europe's far-right politics?

What does Elon Musk do for work these days? Yes, he's made his fame and fortune at the helm of Silicon Valley juggernauts like Tesla and X, but looking at his recent activity both online and off, it seems the tech titan is much more interested in advancing his right-wing political agenda than in scientific advancements. After successfully throwing his seismic influence behind Donald Trump's 2024 reelection campaign, Musk has joined the incoming administration's DOGE project and positioned himself in the president-elect's innermost circle — with policy implications already starting to become apparent.

Musk has not limited his political interest to the country where he resides. Instead, he has increasingly cast his attention overseas to Europe, offering incendiary analysis on X while boosting a host of far-right figures and causes across the continent, including calling for the release of jailed British ultra-nationalist Tommy Robinson and meeting with right-wing Brexit figure Nigel Farage.

In one recent instance, Musk hosted German ultra-right-wing politician Alice Weidel, who used her X-hosted conversation with Musk to ahistorically claim that Adolf Hitler was "a leftist." Weidel, whose hardline Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has been labeled by the country's domestic intelligence agency as a potential far-right extremist group, is a "very reasonable person," Musk said during their conversation. "Nothing outrageous is being proposed." Things are going to get "very, very much worse in Germany" if Weidel's AFD doesn't win in that country's upcoming elections, he said. Is there more to Musk's flirtation with Europe's far-right than meets the eye?

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What did the commentators say?

Musk's focus on Europe is likely less a question of financial motivation than "increasing his power and using his influence to change the world," said Columbia University Professor of Technology, Media, and Communications Alexis Wichowski to Bloomberg. He is "building his empire and he is testing how far he can go." The question, said Bloomberg, is "whether he has an endgame beyond provocation, and what that might be." Musk "sees himself as a savior of U.S. democracy from the progressives," said José Ignacio Torreblanca, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, to The Wall Street Journal. "He thinks this should not stop at home and that it should continue in Europe."

Despite engaging with and boosting "parties with authoritarian leanings, including Germany's AfD" Musk is not actually working toward a "government-centric authoritarianism like fascism," said Elad Nehorai at MSNBC. Instead, he is working toward a world "in which business swallows government and becomes the actual ruling class." And there are more immediate business interests that may have Musk's attention as well. He faces the "possibility of hundreds of millions of dollars in fines" related to his X platform's alleged violations of the European Union's Digital Services Act, which "requires online behemoths to block and remove false content," said The Washington Post's Lee Hockstader.

Musk's renewed focus on European politics also comes as "new registrations for Musk's electronic vehicles fell 13% in the first nine months of 2023" across the continent, The Associated Press said. "In Germany, Tesla registrations dropped 44%." Musk used his conversation with AfD's Weidel to opine about the regulatory hurdles he faced opening a Tesla plant in Germany. "I think it was 25,000 pages was our permit. And it had to be all printed on paper," Musk said. "And then there has to be many, many copies made. So it literally was a truck of paper."

"It is no secret that Tesla was against the government funding for electric charging stations in Germany," said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, "suggesting Musk's comments stem from business dissatisfaction," said the country's DW broadcaster.

What next?

If Musk puts the "same amount of money into all of Europe that he put behind Trump, he will flip every nation to a populist agenda," said MAGA podcaster and longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon to Bloomberg. At the same time, however, some heads of state are "pressing the European Commission to use its legal arsenal against Musk's perceived interference," Reuters said. In Germany, where Musk's comments prompted harsh backlash from elected officials, "several high-profile organizations and users in Germany have already quit X, including the country's highest criminal court," said DW. The German government, however, has "decided against doing so for now."

For Germany's Scholz, meanwhile, there is only one course of action to counter Musk's ongoing political meddling: "Don't feed the troll."