Elon Musk’s attempts to sway German and UK politics thought ‘unacceptable’ – poll

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/17/elon-musk-uk-germany-favourability-yougov-poll?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

by eeehinny

17 comments

  2. Imagine Mr Tata having an opinion on German politics. No news outlet would care. I allow myself to not care about Muks either

  3. It’s so fucking ironic that these spineless cunts complain about EU taking away their autonomy, but soon as some dumb yankee oligarch tells them anything, it’s somehow different. What’s next, Daddy Musk gonna tell you what you should have for breakfast?

  5. Folks, pride goes before a fall. Sooner or later this lunatic will have to face that.

  6. Now tell me how many people who thought it “unacceptable” stopped using Twitter

  7. His endorsement of AfD is unacceptable. Tesla, platform formerly known as Twitter, Starlink, SpaceX etc might as well be considered as the American Nazi companies.

  8. There are over 12,000 active lobbyists in the EU, with much of the pressure being asserted behind closed doors…. At least Elon is transparent and public about his ambitions.

  9. Stop buying Tesla, it’s the only thing that will be able to do anything against this guy…

  10. He is building his own space internet.

    Now he controls a social media platform, imagine what this will be like when he controls the traffic across the web.

  11. >”and believe the US tech magnate does not know much about either country or the issues they face, a poll has shown.”

    Well, thats a bit ironic. I don’t think Germany itself does either, rofl.

  12. “Unnacceptable”

    Except guardian also is doing exactly the same non stop putting up op eds and so on on what they think politics should be about and they don’t stop at UK politics. IF guardian can do that they i don’t see why private people can’t.

    Elon has every right to his own opinion about europe and we europeans have every right to listen to him or not.

    Because Goverments are for and by people and not the other ways round. If population will listen to Elon then that is their fucking right and state has 0 to say it in because people are paying bills for state and their workers.

    AFD is highly popular in germany right now despite “press cordon” trying to squash them on every front.

    To me recent talks about censuring internet because they don’t like what people talk there about is a point that people in power actually don’t want democracy. They just want power and if democracy is against them they will change the rules to squash democracy.

    —

    Romanian coup where they stopped election because wrong person won it is best example of it. They couldn’t find fraud votes so they started to propagandize that it wasa all about tik tok.

    People vote not tiktok/twitter/facebook or whatever. If tik tok video convinced them to vote it means Romanian people voted and this was their right to vote.

  13. I Guardian writes that something is bad, then there is high probability that it’s actually good.

  14. **Exclusive: Majority polled by YouGov viewed billionaire negatively – except among Reform UK and AfD voters**

    The survey, by YouGov, follows a [spate of hostile statements](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/11/how-elon-musk-has-meddled-in-european-affairs) by the billionaire owner of Tesla, SpaceX and the social media platform X attacking the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and their respective governments.

    The poll, of more than 2,200 people in each country, also found that majorities of 54% in both countries thought it was “not important” for their governments to cultivate a good relationship with Musk, and about 50% thought he was best ignored.

    The survey found that only 13% of respondents in both countries saw Musk’s interventions in their politics as acceptable, with 69% in the UK and 73% in [Germany](https://www.theguardian.com/world/germany) saying the opposite. Most also thought his meddling in US politics was unacceptable.

    Asked how well the billionaire understood their countries’ politics and the issues facing them, people were equally scathing: only about a fifth in each country said he knew “a great deal” or “a fair amount”, and 63% “not much” or “nothing at all”. A similar percentage thought he was ignorant of politics and issues in [Europe](https://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news) in general.

    In Germany, [Musk drew fury](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/05/dont-feed-the-troll-german-chancellor-responds-to-elon-musk-comments) weeks before federal elections with a remark on X claiming that only the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) could “save Germany”, followed by [an op-ed](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/28/elon-musk-germany-afd-party) in which he wrote that it was “clearly false” to call the party extreme.

    He has also called Scholz, a Social Democrat, “an incompetent fool”, and Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, an “anti-democratic tyrant”. Last week he heaped praise on the AfD leader, Alice Weidel, [in an X live stream](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/09/elon-musk-heaps-praise-on-afd-alice-weidel-during-live-talk-on-x).

    Musk has described the UK as a “tyrannical police state”, called Starmer [“two-tier Keir”](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/aug/06/elon-musk-calls-pm-two-tier-keir-over-police-response-to-uk-riots) over allegations of judicial discrimination against far-right rioters, and described new farm inheritance tax rules as the UK [“going full Stalin”](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/nov/21/musk-to-summon-british-mps-to-the-us-to-explain-threats-to-american-citizens-uk-riots).

    He has said King Charles should dissolve parliament and the Labour prime minister be jailed for his alleged part in a grooming gangs scandal, [calling Starmer “utterly despicable”](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jan/06/starmer-condemns-lies-and-misinformation-as-he-hits-back-at-musk) and “deeply complicit in mass rapes in exchange for votes”.

  16. That’s the good news. The bad news is they think that ignoring him will solve the problem 

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