 "Elon Musk is looking to influence elections in Europe. File Photo/Reuters")
The battle between Elon Musk and world leaders just keeps going.
Elon Musk, after successfully influencing the US election and getting his preferred candidate Donald Trump elected president, is now looking to spread his influence in other countries.
From Keir Starmer in the UK to Emmanuel Macron in France, world leaders continue to go after Musk.
The richest man in the world, meanwhile, is in no mood to back down.
Musk, resharing a post highlighting the major events of the year, wrote on X:
But what’s going on?
Let’s take a closer look:
Musk vs Starmer
Musk on Monday yet again attacked UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the ‘Pakistani grooming gangs scandal.’
“Prison for Starmer,” Musk wrote on X.
Musk also put up a poll on his social media website X asking whether America “should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government.”
He also claimed Starmer and former prime minister Gordon Brown were among those complicit in the sex crimes, adding in one post that Brown “sold those little girls for votes”.
The development comes days after Musk urged King Charles to dissolve the UK’s Parliament.
Musk on January 3 had claimed Starmer was “complicit in the rape of Britain” and demanded that he face charges for “the worst mass crime in the history of Britain.”
Starmer was chief of public prosecutions (DPP) from 2008 to 2013.
The grooming scandal involved the widespread abuse of girls in northern English towns such as Rochdale, Rotherham and Oldham.
A series of court cases eventually led to the conviction of dozens of men, mostly of South Asian origin. The victims were vulnerable, mostly white, girls.
Subsequent official reports into how police and social workers failed to halt the abuse in some cases found that officials turned a blind eye to avoid appearing racist.
None of the probes singled out Starmer for blame or found that he had tried to block prosecutions.
But that hasn’t stopped Musk from putting up dozens of posts on X attacking Starmer and the Labour Party.
Starmer on Monday hit back, taking aim at those “spreading lies and misinformation” about the UK.
“Those that are spreading lies and misinformation, as far and as wide as possible – they’re not interested in victims, they’re interested in themselves,” Starmer was quoted as saying by CNN.
“We’ve seen this playbook many times, whipping up of intimidation and threats of violence, hoping that the media will amplify it,” Starmer said.
“When the poison of the far right leads to serious threats to Jess Phillips and others, then in my book, a line has been crossed,” he added.
Musk had targeted Jess Philips, the minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, saying she “deserves to be in prison.”
This after Philips declined to order a national inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal.
Musk has called Phillips, a former women’s refuge worker, a “rape genocide apologist.”
Starmer said he enjoys “the cut-and-thrust of politics,” but that debates must “be based on facts and truth, not on lies.”
Starmer said he had dealt with the problem “head-on” as a prosecutor and oversaw “the highest number of child sexual abuse cases being prosecuted on record.”
British lawmaker Ed Davey also rallied to Starmer’s defence.
“People have had enough of Elon Musk interfering with our country’s democracy when he clearly knows nothing about Britain. It’s time to summon the US ambassador to ask why an incoming US official is suggesting the UK government should be overthrown,” Davey wrote on social media.
The Liberal Democrats chief added that the US ambassador ought to convey to the government to “very careful about how they comment on UK affairs, whether they’re the richest man in the world or anyone else.”
Musk also surprised many people in Britain on Sunday when he appeared to U-turn on his support for Brexit cheerleader Nigel Farage, saying his anti-immigration Reform party “needs a new leader”.
Musk vs Macron
Macron, though he did not mention Musk by name, also took aim at the owner of X.
The French leader said the SpaceX boss was “directly intervening in elections”, including in Germany.
“If we had been told the owner of the largest social media network would support an international reactionary movement and directly intervene in elections, including Germany, who would have believed it? This is the world we live in and in which we have to conduct diplomacy,” Macron was quoted as telling French ambassadors by CNN.
Musk then took to X to hit back at Macron.
The X CEO wrote, “Oh like that time Starmer called @realDonaldTrump a racist and said the British government should do everything to stop him? Or when Starmer sent British Labour Party members to campaign in the US against President Trump this year?”
Musk vs Olaf Scholz
Musk has sought to influence elections in Germany too.
As per CNN, the world’s richest man endorsed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party ahead of the federal elections slated for February.
Musk wrote a string of social media posts and an op-ed column in a major German newspaper in support of the AfD – which has been accused of trying to resurrect Nazi ideology.
Musk has said that only the AfD can “save Germany.”
As per Vanity Fair, Musk has denigrated Scholz as an “oaf” who “will lose.”
Scholz has said he’s staying “cool” amid personal attacks from Musk but said he finds it “much more worrying” that Musk is “supporting a party like the AfD, which is in parts right-wing extremist, which preaches rapprochement with Putin’s Russia and wants to weaken transatlantic relations.”
“You have to stay cool,” Scholz said as per The Guardian. “As Social Democrats, we have long been used to the fact that there are rich media entrepreneurs who do not appreciate social democratic politics – and do not hide their opinions.”
“I don’t believe in courting Mr Musk’s favour. I’m happy to leave that to others,” he said. “The rule is: don’t feed the troll.”
Scholz on Saturday slammed Musk for “erratic” comments after the billionaire labelled the German leader an “incompetent fool.”
Robert Habeck, the German Green Party’s chancellor candidate, also slammed Musk.
Habeck told Der Spiegel, “Hands off our democracy, Mr Musk!”
Axios quoted Noway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre as saying on Monday, “This is not the way things should be between democracies and allies.”
“I find it worrying that a man with enormous access to social media and huge economic resources involves himself so directly in the internal affairs of other countries,” Støre told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK.
What do experts say?
Experts are wondering if Musk is venturing out on his own – or if he’s acting at the behest of Trump.
“Will Musk be carrying out Trump’s foreign policy agenda, acting as a personal ambassador of Trump to everywhere?” Lindsay Gorman, managing director and senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund told CNN. “Or will Musk be advancing his own vision for global affairs, which may align with Trump in some ways, but not in others. And then what will be the power dynamics between those two?”
They say Musk’s behaviour is bound to cause problems for US diplomats.
“I think it’s going to get very confusing very quickly. I don’t envy the career diplomats at the State Department, who are certainly going to have their hands full trying to figure out whose agenda they’re carrying out,” said Gorman.
Anna Grzymała-Busse, director of The Europe Center at Stanford University, told NBC European leaders are thinking that Musk’s behaviour could be a harbinger of things to come under Trump.
“This is one more step in transforming the US from a trusted ally to an unpredictable agent,” Grzymała-Busse wrote. Musk in Europe is “widely seen as an ignorant but highly damaging force, and a proxy for Trump.”
Liana Fix, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, pointed out that these developments come as Musk’s platform X is under investigation by the EU.
“Elon Musk’s comments are perceived by the EU as an attempt to bully Europeans into a softer approach towards platform regulation, with the threat of domestic turmoil,” Fix told the outlet.
With inputs from agencies