Over the past decade, European governments have sought to resist covert influence operations by adversaries such as Russia and China.
Now they face an entirely different challenge. It’s about fending off overt efforts by Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s MAGA movement to seize territory, oust elected leaders, and empower far-right causes and parties.
Even before he took office again, Trump has threatened to acquire territory from NATO allies such as Canada and Denmark — perhaps sincerely, perhaps not. And Musk, the president-elect’s biggest financial supporter, has used social media platform I’m trying.
It is not clear whether Europe’s political immune system has the antibodies to protect against these new invasions.
This is not the first time Trump’s allies have sought to build bridges with Europe’s far right. In 2018 and 2019, President Trump’s adviser Stephen K. Bannon met with far-right politicians across Europe. However, the current political climate is very different. The governments of Germany and France collapsed. Far-right parties are on the rise in these countries and are already in power in several other countries on the continent.
A senior official from the first Trump administration, who is expected to take on a more senior role in the second administration, gave a frank assessment. “Europe has no idea what’s going to happen,” he said.
“A very wealthy person expressing his opinion”
Musk spent $250 million of his $400 billion fortune to support Donald Trump’s re-election bid. He probably had just as much influence on American politics through his notoriety and through his ownership of the social media network X, formerly known as Twitter.
He has aggressively campaigned against Kamala Harris (in one case, after she described him as a “diversity employer” who “knew nothing about running a country in the first place”) (shared a fake video) and interviewed Trump live on the platform. He is currently rolling out a similar playbook to Europe.
In Britain, Mr. Musk has revived the decade-old “grooming gang” scandal, which broke when Prime Minister Keir Starmer was director of public prosecutors in the centre-left Labor Party.
Fanning the flames sparked by right-wing media, Mr Musk called Mr Starmer “absolutely despicable” and said he “should go to jail”. Last week, he asked his 212 million followers to vote on whether “America should free the British people from tyranny.”
According to British media reports, Mr. Musk is also considering donating $100 million to Britain’s far-right Reform Party, which would be the largest political donation in the country’s history. Party leader Nigel Farage, one of the main campaigners for Brexit, has met Trump several times, most recently at Mar-a-Lago last month.
“MAGA hates Starmer,” a former Trump administration official told the Times. He spoke candidly on condition of anonymity as his role in the second Trump administration is being considered.
“MAGA loves Meloni,” he added, referring to Italy’s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, “as long as she achieves her deportation goals.”
Musk’s SpaceX is also in talks with Meloni’s government to provide secure military communications through its Starlink satellite network. At a press conference last week, she described Musk as “a very wealthy person who expresses his opinions.”
“Masks are normalizing us.”
In Germany, where a snap election will be held next month, Mr. Musk has encouraged voters to vote for the far-right party AfD, giving it legitimacy that it has long been denied due to its ties to the party, which is under surveillance by Germany’s domestic intelligence services. is presented. Neo-Nazi.
In an op-ed published in a major German newspaper on December 28, he called the AfD the last “spark of hope” for Germany. The country is “on the brink of economic and cultural collapse,” he said.
On Thursday, he livestreamed a 75-minute conversation with AfD prime ministerial candidate Alice Weidell on X, giving her the same platform he gave Trump five months ago.
Since Musk first endorsed the AfD in December, Weidell’s posts about This is also because it has been revived and amplified. Far-right influencers in Germany are now posting to X in English to get Musk’s attention, according to researchers monitoring the online scene.
Germans will not vote for the AfD just because an American billionaire asks them to. But social media is a tool that can shift public opinion, allowing ideas once considered extreme to become mainstream over time.
Despite becoming the country’s second most popular party, what has kept the AfD out of power is the national taboo against cooperating with the far right. The memory of Hitler in coalition with centrist conservatives has kept this firewall in place.
“The firewall between the AfD and the White House is officially gone, which makes the German firewall look ridiculous,” AfD co-leader Tino Churupala told me. “Masks are normalizing us.”
Overt vs. Secret
U.S. influence campaigns in other countries are not new. During the Cold War, the United States supported friendly nations and political parties, and sometimes actively intervened in those deemed ideologically hostile.
But now it appears that the MAGA movement is intentionally sowing discord within America’s allies. For Europeans who grew up absorbing American lessons about democracy after World War II, this is disorienting.
“In the history of Western democracies, I cannot recall a comparable case of interference in the electoral activities of a friendly country,” said Friedrich Merz, leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Party and a candidate for chancellor. Although his party is leading in opinion polls, he will need a coalition partner to form a government.
As the Ukraine war has shown, the United States remains the main guarantor of European security. The prospect of tariffs poses a major threat to the European economy, as it is also Europe’s largest export market. And Europe has no equivalent to Silicon Valley technology companies such as Musk’s X Platform or his satellite company SpaceX.
Europe’s dependence on Russian energy has long prevented it from responding to Kremlin intervention. However, in the case of the United States, the dependence is much greater.
Add to that the fact that American intervention is taking place in broad daylight, rather than covertly, making counterattacks even more difficult.
capitalize on existing grievances
Influence campaigns are most effective when they capitalize on existing grievances. As in the United States, trust in financial institutions in Europe declined in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and the pandemic. Voters are increasingly hostile to immigrants and increasingly concerned about the cost of living and the economy. There is a growing sense that centrist leaders on the left and right have failed to live up to their expectations on these issues.
Conservative author and commentator Matthew Goodwin said millions of people in Europe were angry at the establishment. “It’s not orchestrated by Trump or Musk.”
“Mr. Musk did not create the AfD,” Goodwin added. “His attention is helpful to the AfD, but the underlying cause lies in policy choices made over the past decade.”
Mr. Musk’s provocations in Europe may be aimed at causing maximum disruption rather than electoral success. In Britain, far-right Reform Party leader Nigel Farage slammed Musk after he refused to support his demands for the far-right provocateur’s release.
Torsten Benner, director of the Institute for Global Public Policy in Berlin, said, “Both the Kremlin and its fringe forces in the liberal-authoritarian camp, led by Mr. Musk, want to sow chaos in Europe and eliminate liberal democratic elites. ”, he told German media outlet Die Zeit. . “We have to arm ourselves against it. But the greatest danger to our democracy comes from within, not from without. Campaigners are trying to make sure that voters are concerned. We should focus on the issues that matter.”
A similar level of infighting and turmoil exists within the broader MAGA movement. Back in the United States, there are signs that Trump’s hardline anti-immigrant inner circle is tired of Musk, especially after a spat over whether to expand work visas for high-skilled immigrants. In an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera on Sunday, Mr. Bannon called Mr. Musk a “true evil man” and vowed to “defeat this man.”
Regardless of the direct impact that US intervention will have on Europe’s political map in the coming years, President Trump is determined to enforce his European priorities no matter who takes office.
“At the end of the day, Trump is going to be very aggressive towards Europe in terms of uncompromisingly advocating the US position. It doesn’t really matter who is in charge.” said a former Trump official. “What matters to them is America first. Everything else is a distraction. Trump is going to use America’s power to get his way.”
