'Not his business to give lessons': Italian president takes Musk to task in migration row

Italian President Sergio Mattarella reprimanded Elon Musk Wednesday for wading into a fraught debate over the hard-right government in Rome’s migrant policy, urging the billionaire to refrain from “giving lessons”.

“Italy is a great democratic country… that knows how to look after itself while respecting its Constitution,” said Mattarella, a highly-respected moral authority in Italy, despite his role being essentially ceremonial.

Musk - the world’s richest man who played a major role in the re-election of Donald Trump as US president - commented Tuesday on a ruling by Italian judges that dealt a blow to Rome’s controversial deal with Albania over processing migrants.

“These judges need to go,” Musk said on the X social network that he owns.

Mattarella did not name the tycoon, who has been appointed by Trump to lead a new US “government efficiency” group.

But “anyone - especially if they are preparing, as announced, to occupy an important role in the government of a friendly and allied country - must respect (that country’s) sovereignty and cannot make it his business to give lessons”, he said in a statement.

Musk has close ties with far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, head of an anti-immigrant party.

Mattarella’s statement came as Musk published a fresh comment on X Wednesday, slamming the judges’ ruling as “unacceptable” and asking if “the people of Italy live in a democracy or does an unelected autocracy make the decisions?”

Italy signed a deal with Albania a year ago, under which asylum seekers picked up by Italian authorities in the Mediterranean, and judged to be from so-called “safe” countries, would be processed in the non-EU country - but the scheme has met legal challenges.