Europe’s Elon Musk Problem

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/03/musk-tech-oligarch-european-election-influence/681453/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo

Posted by theatlantic

8 comments

  1. Americans have created an information climate that allows deceptive practices to thrive—jeopardizing the world’s ability to conduct free and fair elections, Anne Applebaum argues.

    In the U.S., companies and people can use secretly funded ‘dark money’ nonprofits to donate large sums, anonymously, to super PACs, which can spend them on advertising campaigns, Applebaum writes. Anyone can boost “outrageous, incendiary lies about a candidate” with online ads. “U.S. elections are now a political Las Vegas: Anything goes.”

    That’s not the case elsewhere: Britain has limits on political parties’ spending, and Polish courts fast-track election-related libel cases before a vote in order to discourage lying. The purpose of such laws, Applebaum writes, is to create conditions for fair debate and build trust in the system. The European Union has fined tech companies billions—and is the one institution that could force them to change their policies.

    But regulators also face pressure, originating in the U.S., to halt enforcement. There are real questions posed by Elon Musk’s “open, aggressive use of X to spread false information and promote extremist and anti-European politicians in the U.K., Germany, and elsewhere,” Applebaum writes. “The integrity of elections—and the possibility of debate untainted by misinformation injected from abroad—is equally challenged” by the Chinese platform TikTok, and by Meta.

    Tech oligarchs “want to undermine European institutions, because they don’t want to be regulated—and they may have the American president on their side,” she continues. The EU, Great Britain, and other democracies may “have to choose” between an alliance with the U.S. and the ability to select their own leaders “without the pressure of aggressive outside manipulation.”

    “If you are Albania, or even the United Kingdom, do you still get to set the parameters of your public debate?” Applebaum asks. “Or are you now forced to be Las Vegas too?”

    Read more here: [https://theatln.tc/rWsiCRNW](https://theatln.tc/rWsiCRNW) 

    — Mary Stachyra Lopez, audience and engagement editor, *The Atlantic*

  2. Musk is a global problem, and I have no idea how we deal with him

  3. The entire premise is that the government can control what ideas people have access to. Europe’s Musk problem is that it can’t stop its people from hearing Musk’s message. Europe’s real problems go deeper than Musk, but it is convenient to blame him, and he is all too happy for the attention.

  4. Europe is between a rock and a hard place.

    The political parties capable of winning elections start openly acknowledging immigration policy failures (whether honestly or to “steal” far-right votes, doesn’t matter)

    This will lead to outflow of “very woke” electorate (claiming racism/exclusion) in exchange for some far-right “moderate” voters who see the danger of supporting far-right + Musk/Trump.

    It won’t increase support in total imo.

    Far-right might lose some “moderate rightists” but will possibly gain others through social media Musk shenanigans/interference.

    It will slightly increase support in total imo.

    Now, Trump is gradually moving Ukraine non-military bill to Europe. Spending public money on Ukraine is already unpopular, far-right will again gain support if EU countries accept the bill.

    If politicians refuse to pay for basically keeping Ukraine running as a country, they’ll lose credibility, Ukraine and piss off Ukrainian migrants inside EU.

    In this particular scenario, I know it’s far-fetched, but imagine somebody organizes concerted terror attacks carried out by “migrants” throughout the country (2-3 incidents).

    We will have far-right + Musk + maybe other backer/s in power.

  5. He’s not Europe’s problem, he’s the planet’s problem.

  7. I wonder why there has been no European social media company develop. Why are we dependent on foreign and increasingly hostile superpowers to host so much of our lives?

  8. In Europe, the state regulates what citizens are allowed to say. That makes it very difficult to get out of a trap.

    X allows anyone to speak their mind. You can follow those that you want. I don’t see why these social media platforms are suddenly bad, whereas local media approved by state promoting the left is good.

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