Fresh from pouring his money and energies into helping Donald Trump win re-election, Elon Musk has trained his sights on Europe, setting off alarm bells among politicians across the continent. The Tesla and SpaceX chief executive has endorsed the far-right Alternative for Germany, demanded the release of jailed U.K. anti-Islam extremist Tommy Robinson and called British Prime Minister Keir Starmer an evil tyrant who should be in prison. Many European politicians have been left concerned by the attention. Musk’s feed on his social network X is dotted with abusive language — labeling politicians “stupid cretin” and “sniveling cowards” — as well as retweets of far-right and anti-immigrant accounts. Andrew Chadwick, professor of political communication at Loughborough University, said Musk is using X “a bit like an old-style newspaper mogul,” to promulgate his political views. “We’ve seen Musk start to align himself much more obviously with an international movement of the far right,” Chadwick said. ”If you look at the kinds of people who Musk himself is boosting on his platform … he’s increasingly started to assemble a group of different right-wing influencers, many of them with large followings, and presenting their evidence as a basis for his interventions into European politics.” Musk has inserted himself into politics in Germany, which is headed for a Feb. 23 election after center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s fractious three-party coalition government collapsed. On Dec. 20, Musk wrote on X: “Only the AfD can save Germany,” a reference to the Alternative for Germany party, which is under observation by the domestic intelligence agency for suspected extremism. He doubled down on support for the AfD in an article for the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, claiming Germany is “teetering on the edge of economic and cultural collapse.” Later this week Musk is due to hold a live chat on X with AfD co-leader Alice Weidel. Scholz’s response embodies the dilemma faced by European politicians — should they ignore and let Musk’s comments go unchallenged, or engage and risk amplifying them? Scholz has said it’s important to “stay cool” over personal attacks, but called Musk’s involvement in German politics worrying. In a new year message, Scholz pointedly noted that Germany’s way forward “will not be decided by the owners of social media channels” but by German voters. French President Emmanuel Macron warned Monday about the risks posed by unchecked power in the hands of tech billionaires and the destabilizing impact they could have on democratic institutions. “Who could have imagined, 10 years ago, that the owner of one of the world’s largest social networks would intervene directly in elections, including in Germany?” Macron said. Greek Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis said Musk’s behavior was “troubling and far from amusing.” “Someone cannot simply use their platform, wealth and connections to try to dictate how governments are formed in each nation,” he told Parapolitika Radio. “This is becoming increasingly dangerous.” Musk has increasingly focused on British politics since the center-left Labour Party was elected in July, calling Starmer an “evil” leader presiding over a “tyrannical police state.” Musk’s recent focus is on child sexual abuse, particularly a series of cases that rocked northern England towns several years ago, in which groups of men, largely from Pakistani backgrounds, were tried for grooming and abusing dozens of mostly white girls. The cases have been […]