Elon Musk has raised alarm across Europe with a string of attacks on the continent’s leaders.
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has accused the US technology billionaire Elon Musk of leading an “international reactionary movement” and warned that the far right could make a resurgence in European politics.
Musk, who is set for a role as an adviser in United States President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, has provoked fury across Europe in recent weeks with a string of attacks on the continent’s leaders, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Musk also waded into Spanish affairs on Sunday by commenting on an article which stated that rape convictions in Spain’s Catalonia region were mainly carried out by foreigners.
Presiding over an event in Madrid to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of fascist dictator Francisco Franco on Wednesday, Sanchez accused Musk of heading an “international reactionary” movement that “openly attacks our institutions, stirs up hatred and openly calls for the support of the heirs of Nazism in Germany’s upcoming elections”.
“Autocratic regimes are advancing halfway around the world,” Sanchez said, warning that “the fascism we thought we had left behind is now the third political force in Europe” and adding that the far right is supported by “the richest man on the planet”, referring to Musk, whom he did not name.
The comments come after Musk offered strong support to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party ahead of snap elections in the country on February 23.
The billionaire has also called for Starmer to be removed and urged the release from jail of Tommy Robinson, a far-right UK activist who is serving an 18-month term for contempt of court.
EU weighs response
The European Union is grappling with how to respond to Musk’s perceived interference. Some European governments are pressing the European Commission to use its legal arsenal.
“Either the European Commission applies with the greatest firmness the laws that exist to protect our unique space or it does not, and in that case, it should think about giving the capacity to do so back to EU member states,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told France Inter radio earlier on Wednesday.
The issue is testing the EU’s willingness to confront Musk head-on and risk antagonising the incoming Trump administration, as well as the effectiveness of the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which regulates social media platforms’ operations in the EU.
A Commission spokesperson said this week that the DSA had previously proved to be an effective instrument to combat risks posed by the leading social media platforms and said a political choice had been made not to respond directly to Musk’s tweets and “fuel the debate”, the Reuters news agency reported.
Musk last month called German Chancellor Olaf Scholz an “incompetent fool” who should resign after a deadly car-ramming attack in Germany. On Thursday, Musk will use his platform to host a conversation with AfD head Alice Weidel.
Scholz has responded by calling for cool. “Don’t feed the troll,” he told German weekly Stern on January 4.
French President Emmanuel Macron took aim at Musk earlier this week.
“Ten years ago, who would have believed it if we had been told that the owner of one of the biggest social networks in the world … intervene directly in elections, including in Germany?” he said.
Musk has also been steadily critical of the UK’s Starmer and his government, most recently over a child sex abuse scandal more than a decade ago.
Starmer on Monday criticised “those that are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible” without mentioning Musk by name.