Donald Trump is to be inaugurated in just under a week, and the only thing that seems certain is that nothing is certain.
The chaos that characterised Trump’s first term as president appears to be gaining a deeper quality with the tireless involvement of Elon Musk as his new unelected partner in politics. How this duo will fare over time is a subject of debate. The hope that the two egos will clash and therefore disintegrate could be mere wishful thinking. Musk, a South African born entrepreneur, now alleged to be the world’s richest man, cannot be US president due to not being American born. This, for now, seems to appease Trump and not view him as a personal threat.
Trump seems to rather bathe in the blaze of his newly won billionaire friends who have duly filed into Mar-a-Laga to “kiss the ring”. Whether they are Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg, these power wielding entrepreneurs have all come to unanimously endorse Trump, who has said himself that, “In the first term, everyone was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend”. This will likely mean even less regulation and even more opportunity for the very wealthy to become even more wealthy and more powerful.
What it means for the average worker and the average Trump voter is arguably less positive. The MAGA (Make America Great Again) base was Trump’s platform in his first presidency, and from where he launched his re-election. Now, he seems less attuned to their needs and happier to embrace his powerful new ‘buddies’ that form America’s new oligarchy. Steve Bannon, once a close advisor of Trump, seems to have identified Musk as a “truly evil” threat and has promised to “take him down”. Maybe this will cause fraction in the new administration even if the bromance between Trump and Musk threatens to prevail.
Elon Musk’s mission – endorsement of far-right parties in Europe and disruption
Last week, Musk extended an offer to Alice Weidel, the leader of Germany’s far-right party the AfD (Alternative for Germany), to participate in an interview with him on his social media platform X. The audience was estimated to be over 200,000 listeners, who were guests to a unmoderated and shallow exchange between two strangers. At the end of 2024, Musk had also written an op-ed for the German paper Die Welt, where he stated that the AfD was the only party who could be the “last spark of hope for Germany”. Such meddling, prior to the upcoming General Election on the 23 February, has caused leaders of other parties to react. Chancellor Scholz insisted on “not feeding the troll” while opposition leader Merz describes Musk as “intrusive and presumptuous”.
Indeed, Musk’s motivation for such meddling can be speculated upon. Does he want to disrupt the political status quo to benefit his investments in the country? Ironically, when Musk built his Tesla plant in Grünheide, the AfD were vocal opponents, and even in the Musk/Weidel interview, his endorsement of solar power is not compliant with AfD policy. Weidel and the AfD are not known for their support of alternative sources of energy. At the party conference this weekend, Weidel announced that she would tear down wind turbines in Germany if she came to power. But mutual policy details were not the point. The point was to give an extremist party a voice and make them indebted to his ‘generosity’.
The interview, while not demonstrating Weidel’s rhetoric skills as she giggled her way through most of it, seems to have given the party, if not herself, a boost. Currently, the AfD is the second strongest party in the polls.
The interview however cannot be dismissed as a harmless chat. What was concerning was the spread of a revisionist idea of history where disinformation even managed to cast Adolf Hitler as a communist. The fact that the Nazis persecuted, imprisoned and murdered many communists when in power was conveniently left unmentioned.
Whether the Weidel/Musk interview will make a significant boost to the AfD’s chances at the upcoming election is not conclusive. After the interview was aired, traditional football clubs, such as Werder Bremen and Hamburg’s St.Pauli, have withdrawn their registration on X, saying they see radicalisation on the platform and have now endorsed Bluesky. Germany’s football federation, the DFB, has also voiced concern and other prominent clubs such as Bayer Leverkusen and VfB Stuttgart are considering their moves. The economic impact of losing profit generating followers is to be weighed up against a platform which is now largely seen as invoking hate, racism and a source of disinformation. But it is encouraging to see critical voices from those who are prepared to take an economic hit to honour their principles.
Can the European Commission respond?
Calls have been heard that the European Commission (EC) should investigate Musk’s role under the Digital Services Act which came into force in 2022. The concern that Musk has manipulated algorithms to suppress critical voices and enhance posts that endorse him and his views, whilst arguing that he is an upholder of free speech, needs to be investigated. Unfortunately, the EC is slow in its response, and it can be argued that the European Union is also reluctant to upset such a powerful adversary.
Only this week Mark Zuckerberg asked Trump to be more forceful against the EC, who have complained that the US social media companies have failed to uphold transparency and antitrust regulations. Zuckerberg and his colleagues from other US tech companies accuse the EC of “screwing” American firms. These companies have been fined by the EU over $30bn for violations over the past 20 years. It comes therefore as no surprise that the tech giants now supporting Trump want him to unite their economic leverage to crush EU sanctions and gain unfettered access to these markets.
France’s foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot insisted that the EC implement the law in a more forceful fashion: “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 the member states of the European Union”.
Musk’s criticism of Starmer
Musk is also causing concern in other European capitals with his endorsement of right-wing groups and overt and unproven criticism of incumbents, such as Keir Starmer, whom he alleged had enabled a child sex racket in the UK. Starmer arguably had one of his more defining moments since becoming Prime Minister by pushing back against Musk’s comments and condemned the comments as being “lies and disinformation” which only serve to undermine democracy.
Other leaders who haven’t been on the receiving end of Musk’s focus have also come out and complained about his irresponsible behaviour. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez criticised Musk at a commemorative service marking the 50th anniversary of dictator Francisco Franco’s death. He emphasised liberty over authoritarianism and warned against open attacks on democratic institutions and stirring up hatred.
Equally, Emmanuel Macron has recently hosted Trump with Musk in tow at the reopening service of Notre Dame in Paris. He berated Musk for “supporting a new international reactionary movement and intervening directly in elections.”
However, as Musk has economic and media leverage over governments in terms of security issues through his businesses like Starlink and the still popular X platform, merely admonishing his behaviour will not suffice. The willingness to push back with unpopular measures that can have downsides for national economies when dealing with the transactionalist Trump and his new influential best buddy will prove difficult for many incumbents and newly elected governments.
Musk’s investment in Trump has proved worthwhile
Musk’s endorsement of Trump’s re-election, which saw him invest at least $250mn in his campaign, has produced a fantastic return on investment. Since Trump’s victory in November, Musk’s wealth is approximated to have risen from $264bn to a high of $486bn. It can equally be speculated that Trump’s own wealth and that of his family and other cronies has also rocketed due to investments in Bitcoin and other Silicon Valley opportunities. His rather elusive Vice President (VP) JD Vance, is a protégé of Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley giant and founder of firms such as Paypal and Palantir. They must also gain a mention as part of the oligarchal gang,although, you would be mistaken to think that Elon is the true VP.
When voters are tempted by the anti-establishment rhetoric the Trumps and Musks of this world profess, it may be pertinent to ask what they truly have in common with the agendas of the exceptionally wealthy megalomaniacs. Equally, the leaders of politically moderate parties need to ask themselves what arguments and messages they can procure to expose this paradox.
Expansionist Visions and Neo-imperialism
As if all the unsettling cosying up to right-wing parties and spread of blatant lies about democratically elected representatives isn’t enough to wrinkle the foreheads of American so-called allies with considerable concern. This past week has seen Trump fabulate about including Canada as the 51st state of the United States, conquering Greenland by using economic or military coercion and reconstituting the Panama Canal as American.
This expansionist talk must be music in the ears of equally imperialistic minded folk such as Putin and Xi of China. However, the startling difference being that Russia and Ukraine unlike the countries Trump is eyeing up are not allies, nor are China and Taiwan.
How to pre-empt whether Trump is serious or bluffing is impossible. His own diplomats and armed forces face similar questions regarding his true ambitions. The outcome is an unsettled international environment which is already in a precarious position after almost three years of war in Ukraine and excessive volatility in the Middle East with the war in Gaza and the collapse of the Assad regime.
The workings of international institutions and treaties are by no means perfect, but they have provided the Western world with a long period of peace, which was only possible with a dependable America. If the United States and its incoming government is happy to torch this order, it is playing into the hands of its enemies whose goal it is to end the rules-based order as we know it. Whether Trump recognises this or finds it worth endorsing is unclear.
Disruption means expect the unexpected.
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