Europe’s leaders have had enough of Musk’s meddling, but can they stop him?

Leela JACINTO

8 January 2025 at 10:45 am·1-min read

File photo of Donald Trump watching a SpaceX test flight with Elon Musk taken in Boca Chica, Texas, November 19, 2024.

Elon Musk’s invective against major European leaders and his support for right-wing, eurosceptic parties peaked this week, sparking warnings about the US tech billionaire’s intervention in the continent’s democratic institutions. Now EU policy experts are mulling legal measures to rein him in.

The first Monday of the new year got off to a choppy start, with European leaders accusing a billionaire citizen of a friendly nation of intervening in the continent’s democratic processes.

As the countdown to Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration hits the final stretch, his close ally Elon Musk has already triggered transatlantic alarms, jolting politicians and policy advisors to prepare for the challenges of a second Trump presidency.

In his annual foreign policy address Monday, Emmanuel Macron did not name Musk directly, but the French president didn’t mince his words when summarising the threat posed by the world’s wealthiest man to Europe’s democratic institutions.

"Ten years ago, who could have imagined it if we had been told that the owner of one of the largest social networks in the world would support a new international reactionary movement and intervene directly in elections, including in Germany," Macron told French ambassadors gathered in Paris.

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