For a few hours, on December 31, a frog was the most followed user on X, with 210 million subscribers. Owner of the social network, Elon Musk had replaced his profile photo with that of “Pepe the Frog”, a cartoon character. However, the amphibian meme serves as a sign of online recognition for “white supremacists”. There is no chance that the wink is involuntary, as the boss of SpaceX and Tesla, shock advisor to President-elect Donald Trump, whose campaign he showered with more than 270 million dollars, is increasing his support for the extreme right of the planet.
Recently, the richest man in the world suddenly burst onto the European political scene, sparking a wave of panic. As if his success gave him all the rights. A few weeks before the legislative elections in Germany, on February 23, he insisted that the anti-migrant, Eurosceptic and pro-Russian party AfD constituted the “only glimmer of hope” for a nation in distress; invited his boss, and candidate for chancellor, Alice Weidel, to a conversation about X, giving him a global audience; and called Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz “an incompetent fool”.
“New reactionary international”
In the United Kingdom too, its interference has taken on crazy proportions. With many tweets, Musk demanded the release of an extremist convicted of defamatory comments about a Syrian refugee, then judged Prime Minister Keir Starmer “despicable”, exploiting old child crime scandals which had deeply shocked the country. He even took the liberty of calling for early elections, and organized a poll on X asking whether the United States should free the United Kingdom from its “tyrannical government”.
Concern is growing among the authorities concerned – with fears in the United Kingdom that Musk is funding the far-right Reform UK party. But also among their neighbors – Emmanuel Macron accused the billionaire of supporting “a new reactionary international”. Never has a man as wealthy and influential as Musk, whose economic empire and platform give him considerable leverage, seemed so determined to bring his ideas to power. By all means, starting with disinformation. With the objective, in passing, of causing a wave of deregulation which would benefit its companies.
The threat to our democracies and the unity of our societies is real. If he seems to be in perfect love with the very conservative president of the Italian council Giorgia Meloni, European governments are now facing a complex equation: managing an increasingly dangerous man, who will be part of Trump’s inner circle at home -Blanche, without alienating this one.