{"id":308508,"date":"2025-08-01T06:03:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T06:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/308508\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T06:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T06:03:10","slug":"key-things-to-know-about-how-elon-musk-has-boosted-hard-right-figures-in-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/308508\/","title":{"rendered":"Key things to know about how Elon Musk has boosted hard-right figures in Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

ROME — ROME (AP) \u2014 Elon Musk<\/a> may have tumbled from political grace in Washington, D.C., but as he seeks to build a new political party, his power on X \u2014 where he commands the most popular account \u2014 remains unchecked. <\/p>\n

Musk is a kingmaker<\/a> on the platform he acquired in 2022 for $44 billion<\/a>. He has used his influence to cultivate hard-right politicians and insurgent activists across Europe. A retweet or reply from Musk can lead to millions of views and tens of thousands of new followers, according to an Associated Press analysis of public data. <\/p>\n

That fact has not been lost on influencers who have tagged Musk persistently, seeking a reply or a retweet. It has also fueled concerns in Europe about foreign meddling — not from Russia or China, but from the United States. <\/p>\n

\u201cEvery alarm bell needs to ring,\u201d Christel Schaldemose, a vice president of the European Parliament who works on electoral interference and digital regulation, told AP. <\/p>\n

The Associated Press analyzed more than 20,000 posts, which were compiled by Bright Data, over a three-year period from a sample of 11 European figures who had significant interactions with Musk and frequently promote a hard-right political or social agenda<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These case studies are not meant to be representative of a broad universe; rather they showcase the ways in which Musk\u2019s engagement can have an impact on local influencers that share his views.<\/p>\n

Since acquiring Twitter in October 2022, Elon Musk\u2019s followers have more than doubled, to over 220 million. No other large account has shown such high or consistent growth.<\/p>\n

The result: If Musk\u2019s X account is his megaphone, it has gotten a lot bigger since he took over — a change that has global implications.<\/p>\n

The accounts Musk has been promoting are part of a growing global alliance of nationalistic parties and individuals united in common cause to halt migration, overturn progressive policies and promote an absolutist vision of free speech, which has rattled the foundation of a trans-Atlantic bond that guided U.S. and European relations for over eight decades.<\/p>\n

Several of the accounts AP analyzed belong to people who have faced allegations of illegal behavior in their own countries. Tommy Robinson, an anti-immigrant agitator in the U.K., was sentenced in October to 18 months in prison<\/a> for violating a court order blocking him from making libelous allegations against a Syrian refugee. Bjoern Hoecke, a politician from Germany\u2019s Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party, was convicted last year of knowingly using a Nazi slogan<\/a> in a speech. <\/p>\n

Italian vice premier Matteo Salvini was acquitted in December<\/a> of allegations he illegally detained 100 migrants aboard a humanitarian rescue ship<\/p>\n

Among the others examined by AP: Alice Weidel, who helped lead Germany\u2019s Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party to its best electoral showing this year; Eva Vlaardingerbroek, a Dutch influencer known as the \u201cshieldmaiden of the far-right\u201d; Naomi Seibt, a German activist dubbed the \u201canti-Greta Thunberg\u201d now living in what amounts to political exile in Washington DC; Rub\u00e9n Pulido and Foro Madrid, both associated with Spain\u2019s populist Vox party; and Fidias Panayioutou, a politician from Cyprus who has also advocated for Musk\u2019s companies. <\/p>\n

These accounts collectively gained roughly 5 million followers from the time Musk took over Twitter in October 2022 through January of this year. Most saw triple-digit percentage increases in their followers — as high as 920%, or in one case of a tiny account exploding over that time, topping 6,000%. Even some accounts that grew more steadily on their own saw their follower counts sharply begin rising once Musk started interacting with them. Similarly, on days Musk interacted with a post, the number of views the account got soared \u2014 in most cases, accruing two to four times as many views, with a few seeing boosts 30 or 40 times their normal daily viewership.<\/p>\n

More established players in Musk\u2019s orbit — like Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose ruling Brothers of Italy party has neo-fascist roots \u2014 benefit less when Musk interacts with them on X, AP found.<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s dominance creates a strong incentive for people to get Musk to engage with their content. <\/p>\n

Naomi Seibt, a German climate skeptic, pinged Musk nearly 600 times over the past three years. Musk finally engaged in June 2024, when he asked her to explain why the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is so controversial in Germany. <\/p>\n

Since then, Musk has replied to, quoted or tagged Seibt more than 50 times, and her followers have grown by more than 320,000 since Musk took over the platform. On days Musk interacted with Seibt, her posts, on average, got 2.6 times as many views.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t intentionally \u2018invade\u2019 Elon\u2019s algorithm,\u201d Seibt told AP. \u201cObviously Elon has a lot of influence and can help share a message even with those who are usually glued to the legacy media, particularly in Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alice Weidel, who helps lead the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, saw her daily audience surge from 230,000 to 2.2 million on days Musk interacted with her posts on X. After Musk hosted a livestream with Weidel on X, vice president JD Vance broke protocol and met her in Munich. Weidel\u2019s party, which is fighting a lawsuit to block the German government\u2019s decision to designate it as an extremist group, went on to secure its best electoral showing ever.<\/p>\n

Musk has also used X to advocate for the leader of Italy\u2019s hard-right League party, Matteo Salvini. On days Musk interacted with Salvini\u2019s account, average views were more than four times higher than usual. Now serving as vice premier, Salvini has urged his government to move ahead with controversial contracts for Starlink and pushed back against European efforts to regulate content on X.<\/p>\n

And Musk has a friend in Brussels: Fidias Panayiotou \u2014 a 25-year-old social media influencer from Cyprus. Before winning a surprise seat in the European Parliament last year, the Cypriot spent weeks on a quest to get Elon Musk to hug him. In January 2023, his wish came true. Their embrace went viral. Since taking office, Panayiotou has praised X on the floor of the European Parliament, pushed back against regulations that impact the platform, and credited Musk with sparking his call to fire 80% of EU bureaucrats.<\/p>\n

Musk, evidently, was pleased. \u201cVote for Fidias,\u201d he wrote on X. \u201cHe is smart, super high energy and genuinely cares about you!\u201d <\/p>\n

The endorsement has been viewed 11.5 million times. <\/p>\n

\u2014-<\/p>\n

Kessler reported from Washington<\/p>\n

\u2014-<\/p>\n

Contact AP\u2019s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org<\/a> or https:\/\/www.ap.org\/tips\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ROME — ROME (AP) \u2014 Elon Musk may have tumbled from political grace in Washington, D.C., but as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[113028,13217,3907,2000,299,5187,4179,38780,285,53,7143,10673,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-308508","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-113028","9":"tag-activism","10":"tag-article","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-political-refugees","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-technology","18":"tag-u-s-news","19":"tag-washington-news","20":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114951998899244597","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}