It’s not just Russia anymore. Interference in European democratic processes also comes from the United States. And it causes nerves in some capitals a few weeks before the general elections in the European Union’s largest economy, and its most populous country, Germany.
The threat, seen from Berlin, London or Brussels, is not only the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the so-called hybrid war, nor the attempts to destabilize electoral campaigns. The most recent case was the presidential elections in Romania last November, suspended by the Constitutional Court due to the alleged disinformation and manipulation campaign in favor of the far-right and pro-Russian candidate Calin Georgescu.
Today another form of interference appears, neither clandestine nor illegal, but openly and shamelessly claimed. It is the interference practiced by Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, master of Tesla, SpaceX and the social network
In the United Kingdom, Musk’s attacks on Prime Minister Keir Starmer have become one of the most pressing issues facing the Labor Government. The billionaire points the finger at Starmer with apocalyptic accusations and a clearly inflammatory purpose. In Germany, and after also being the subject of defamatory messages from the technology magnate, Chancellor Olaf Scholz called this Saturday for “calm” in the face of “the erratic statements of a US billionaire.”
“Only AfD can save Germany,” Musk wrote in X on December 19, alluding to the acronym of the far-right Alternative for Germany party. Last Sunday, the magnate developed the argument in an article in the conservative newspaper Welt am Sonntag: “Germany is at a critical moment. “Its future teeters on the brink of economic and cultural collapse.” Musk is in all sauces. A few days earlier, when the Romanian Constitutional Court announced the controversial annulment of the presidential elections after the victory of the pro-Russian Georgescu in the first round, he launched: “How can a judge cancel an election and not be considered a dictator.”
All this happens in the context of a Europe with several electoral calls in 2025: in addition to the German legislative elections and the repetition of the Romanian presidential elections, Poland and other countries will go to the polls. It happens with the war in Ukraine at a critical moment. And with extreme right parties that feel the wind in their favor. AfD, according to the polls, will be the second force in the February 23 elections.
“External influence,” warned German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, “is a danger to our democracy, whether it is covert, as happened recently in the elections in Romania, or open and blatant, as is practiced currently especially intensively on the X platform.” “Undemocratic tyrant,” Musk responded.
In Germany, Musk has offered the far right and his chancellorship candidate, Alice Weidel, a double seal of respectability. Subjected to a strict sanitary cordon in her country, she is the one chosen by the richest man in the world and the friend of the next president of the United States. And the support is published in nothing less than the columns of the newspaper Die Weltand his Sunday Welt am Sonntag,a newspaper of the powerful Axel Springer media group. In a few days, this party, which includes people nostalgic for the old German nationalism and which even the Frenchwoman Marine Le Pen considers too radical, has taken giant steps towards its normalization.
“Alice Weidel can’t believe how lucky she is with this election recommendation,” says Thorsten Benner, director of the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin. “I would say that there are not that many people who would not have thought about voting for them and who are now going to do so because Musk recommended it, but that Axel Springer has published this article is an important step for AfD.”
In the United Kingdom, Musk has resurrected a 10-year-old scandal that shocked the British to directly attack Starmer, who was then in charge of prosecutors. More than 1,400 girls in charge of social protection services suffered sexual abuse by organized groups made up mostly of men of Pakistani origin, according to an independent report commissioned by the Government. “Starmer must resign and face prosecution for his complicity in the worst mass crime in the history of the United Kingdom,” Musk wrote.
In Romania, a NATO member, the interference has opened a political and constitutional crisis. The secret services suspect “hybrid Russian actions” against the internet infrastructure, similar to others directed by Moscow in neighboring Moldova and Ukraine, and the “abusive exploitation” of the algorithm of TikTok, the short video platform with more than 2,000 millions of users around the world that was definitive in supporting the extremist candidate.
The Romanian case
“Romania is a very interesting case study in how our democracy can be vulnerable,” notes veteran Romanian analyst Radu Magdin. This case, according to Magdin, serves as a lesson about the need for better and more transparent laws on the financing of partisan campaigns in networks and paid collaborations with influencerswho accumulate millions of followers.
Sorin Ionita, from the Romanian think tank Expert Forum, believes that the parallelism between the interference in Romania and Germany “is not appropriate.” “Musk is an identifiable person with a known agenda. It’s like a cowboy crazy, but we see what he does. In Romania it is totally different.” In his country, he says, the external campaign has taken advantage of internal weaknesses, and has benefited from the existence of “opaque and incompetent” politicians and institutions.
Marietje Schaake, author of the book The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley(The technological coup: how to save Silicon Valley democracy), explains: “When Musk openly tweets his opinions, or makes a donation, it is something different from the non-transparent role that X’s algorithms play in mobilizing voters. It is disturbing to see him using his voice, wealth and social media platform to support nationalist far-right leaders. “Musk occupies too many functions without the necessary checks and balances.”
Schaake, who was a liberal MEP from the Netherlands and now researches at Stanford University, says that, “in the case of Russia, the methods are more silent, disinforming and sowing divisions in a non-transparent way.” And yet, there are points in common: “Russian actors exploit the business models of American technology companies to seek out and reach their audiences.”
Other countries have detected interference campaigns, mainly from Russia. The potential of social networks to destabilize, manipulate and bias elections is increasingly clear. But Romania has been the first country to pull the emergency brake and stop elections about to hold the second round. A radical and enormously controversial action that opens a “dangerous precedent,” says a senior European official. Political scientist Camil Ungureanu, professor at Pompeu Fabra University, believes that “the court’s intervention could worsen the situation.” And he adds: “It seems plausible that the decision [judicial] It is also motivated by the fear of establishment of losing its privileged position.”
For the Kremlin, the electoral annulment feeds the narrative about liberal democracies supposedly incapable of accepting the results. “I am sure that more or less objective observers understand these games perfectly,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Romania’s is the first case of elections annulled due to interference on social networks. And it puts other countries on alert in a delicate year in the face of Russia’s hybrid war, which has a spy agency with units especially dedicated to electoral interference and has powerful machinery to spread and amplify false news and disinformation campaigns that many Sometimes they drink from real problems and cases, according to various investigations.
Debate in Germany
“What happened in Romania could happen anywhere in Europe,” warns MEP Siegfried Muresan, of the European People’s Party. “The objective [de Rusia] is to favor extremist anti-European candidates, in order to destabilize the EU Member States and disrupt the EU as a whole. They have done it on a smaller scale in the past. What we are seeing now is a new level.”
Benner of the Global Public Policy Institute believes that, in Germany, the reaction should not be limited to anger at Musk, but could take concrete forms. For example, greater regulation of X. Or a campaign not to buy Tesla cars. “And furthermore,” he adds, “it is necessary to find good arguments in the campaign on issues that mobilize voters.” Issues such as social unrest and the economic crisis that, precisely, feed the extreme right. The Trumpist tycoon in this case acts as a distraction. “Criticizing Elon Musk,” he says, “doesn’t solve a single problem for German voters.”
The German debate is not only political. It’s journalistic. In the editorial offices of Die Welt and Welt am Sonntag,The discussions have been intense and the head of Opinion, Eva Marie Kogel, has resigned. Along with Musk’s article, the newspaper published another by its editor-in-chief, Jan Philipp Burgard, contradicting it. Axel Springer is not just any media group. Since the post-war period, support for Israel has been included in its statutes. Hence the surprise for some readers to see in their columns a request to vote for a party that the newspaper itself describes as “partly anti-Semitic.”
“I cannot remember, in the history of Western democracies, a comparable case of interference in the electoral campaign of a friendly country,” said Friedrich Merz, Christian Democrat candidate and favorite to succeed Scholz in the chancellery. In the United Kingdom, on the other hand, the magnate’s outbursts receive applause from the British opposition. The new Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, has supported Musk’s attacks by calling for an investigation into past abuses, which the governments of which she was a member refused to promote. And populist leader Nigel Farage is also cheering the billionaire, encouraged by the promise of massive funding for his party, Reform UK.
Badenoch and Farage are playing with fire, because the owner of Musk falsely presents Robinson as the champion of freedom of expression who dared to denounce the alleged maneuvers of power to hide sexual scandals and thus favor, according to him, a Muslim minority.
Marietje Schaake, the author of The technological coupbelieves that the recipe for interference is more transparency and accountability. “In general,” he says, “the distribution of information and the financing of campaigns and candidates is acceptable as long as it falls within the limits of the law.” And he warns: “I believe it is time to critically review current laws to avoid inappropriate interference.”
According to Ionita, from the Romanian Expert Forum, what happened in her country is a signal for Europe. “If in Romania someone was interested in amplifying internal disputes and the incompetence of the authorities, in Germany the stakes are 10 times higher,” he says. “If Germany is destroyed politically, this is how Europe is ruined.”
