{"id":415590,"date":"2025-01-07T12:48:30","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T11:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/01\/07\/musk-elezioni-germania-ue-dsa\/"},"modified":"2025-01-07T14:36:33","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T13:36:33","slug":"elon-musk-set-his-sights-on-german-elections-now-the-european-commission-has-a-serious-problem-with-x","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/01\/07\/elon-musk-set-his-sights-on-german-elections-now-the-european-commission-has-a-serious-problem-with-x\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk set his sights on German elections: now the European Commission has a serious problem with X"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Elon Musk and the European Commission are on a collision course. The clash<\/a> between Brussels and the very wealthy South African entrepreneur naturalized US – and future Trump administration adviser – seems inevitable, despite the caution with which the EU executive is responding to the increasingly frequent attacks of the owner of X\u00a0<\/strong>on the policies of the old continent. The showdown could take place at the German\u00a0elections<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0February 23: Musk has already mobilized his social platform to support the far-right Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland<\/strong> (AfD), unconcerned about his obligations under the European Digital Services Act (DSA).<\/p>\n

In reality, the EU Commission opened a\u00a0formal proceeding<\/strong>\u00a0on the former Twitter in December<\/a> \u00a0for, among other things, “suspected breaches in areas related to risk management<\/strong>, civic discourse, and electoral processes.” Recently, coinciding with his entering politics alongside Trump, the Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder\u00a0several times intervened strongly on what is happening in Brussels or member states, going\u00a0as far as\u00a0calling the European Commission an ‘undemocratic’<\/strong> body or\u00a0attacking Italian magistrates responsible for blocking the transfer of migrants to the centers wanted by Meloni in Albania. “Elon Musk can express his views on European policy.\u00a0It is his right<\/strong> within the framework of freedom of speech, which is the basis of the Digital Service Act (DSA),” a European Commission spokesman responded yesterday to the continued attacks by Must on the internal policies of several EU capitals.<\/p>\n

\"musk<\/a>
Elon Musk with EU internal market commissioner Thierry Breton<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, Musk announced that on Thursday, January 9, he will host a livestream on X with AfD leader Alice Weidel<\/strong> ahead of the German\u00a0election. In principle, “nothing forbids it,” spokesman Thomas Regnier clarified, but the question is: “How much is [it] or will it be boosted<\/strong>?’ this is what the Commission will be looking at.” The DSA requires large platforms to analyze and mitigate potential “systemic risks” related, for example, to electoral processes and civic discourse. The determining factor on\u00a0whether Musk will breach\u00a0European law is to what extent the X algorithm will promote the streaming appointment with the leader of Germany’s far-right. In a concerned letter<\/a> addressed to the European\u00a0Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen, German MEP Damien Boeselager<\/strong> highlighted the risk that Musk “has inserted a multiplier in the X code<\/strong>” that would allow him to amplify disproportionately his content on the platform he owns.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Alice<\/a>
Alice Weidel (credits: Michele Tantussi \/ Afp)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n

If so, the live stream with Weidel “could very well become part of the ongoing investigation into X,” the European Commission spokesman continued. Still, this is not a good starting point ahead of the roundtable scheduled for January 24<\/strong> that will bring together the Commission services, coordinators of German digital services, civil society organizations, and major online platforms, including X, “to discuss the risks ahead of these elections.” The attitude adopted by Brussels towards\u00a0the efforts of the head of X to destabilize European democracies remains wait-and-see, as the EU executive’s chief spokeswoman, Paula Pinho, made clear. “The more we talk about him (Musk), the more we promote him,<\/strong>” she said.<\/p>\n

The one who spoke openly about it – without, however, calling him by name – was French President Emmanuel Macron<\/strong>, who,\u00a0during a conference of French ambassadors, said: “Ten years ago, if anyone had said that the owner of one of the world\u2019s largest social networks would support a new reactionary alliance and intervene directly in elections, even in Germany, who would have imagined it? This is the world where\u00a0we live, and we have to be diplomatic.”\u00a0On the other hand,\u00a0the British Labour prime minister, Keir Starmer,<\/strong> condemned the harsh attacks by Mus against him and the government, defining\u00a0them as “lies and misinformation.”<\/p>\n

The problem, in the very short term, risks becoming diplomatic\u00a0because Musk will become head of a new body with advisory duties regarding cutting federal agency spending in the future Trump administration. The privileged interlocutor of the Trump-Musk couple is the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni<\/strong>, who had to deny reports in the international press about the imminent signing of a 1.5 billion euro deal with SpaceX for the use of the Starlink satellite communication system,\u00a0on which the European Commission, again, preferred not to comment. “We have not received any information on this. Italy is a sovereign state and can conclude such agreements,” a Brussels spokesman glossed over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After increasingly frequent attacks on European democracies, the owner of X will host a live stream with Germany’s far-right AfD leader. Macron denounces “direct intervention in elections,” Brussels stalls: ‘We will examine how far it will be boosted’ by the algorithm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7527,"featured_media":415571,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[25871,25816,26087,26088,26260,26064,26091],"class_list":["post-415590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-dsa-en","tag-elon-musk-en","tag-emmanuel-macron-en","tag-giorgia-meloni-en","tag-x-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415590"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415621,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415590\/revisions\/415621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}