A few weeks before the German federal elections scheduled for February 23, 2025, Elon Musk gave his support to the AfD in a message viewed nearly 50 million times between Friday morning and Sunday afternoon. Public support from the boss of the social network
Friday morning, in reaction to a video by 19-year-old German YouTuber Naomi Seibt (close to the AfD party), Elon Musk pressed the button: “Only the AfD can save Germany”.
The next day, Thierry Breton addressed the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, and the President of the European Council, António Costa, in reaction to this message: “A few weeks before the elections in Germany and at the time of the heinous Magdeburg attack, Elon Musk, the world's biggest influencer on X and potential member of the American administration, openly supports the far-right AfD party. Isn't that the very definition of foreign interference? We must put an end to “double standards” and apply the #DSA (Digital Services Act) in Europe.”.
This message took on particular resonance after the attack at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany. If Elon Musk's first post dates back several hours before the attack, Thierry Breton did not hesitate to recall this context which is not very conducive to scandalous statements on German politics.
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Election interference
This remark seems to have stung the owner of the platform. “Dude, American interference is the only reason you don't speak German or Russian today”he replied in an allusion to the American landing in France during the Second World War. In recent months, the two men have increased their clashes due to alerts sent by Thierry Breton when he was stationed at the European Commission. The latter was particularly alarmed by the lack of moderation on the platform, although required by the DSA. A regulation to which the X platform and its approximately 100 million European users must nevertheless comply.
But behind Thierry Breton's post, there are above all suspicions concerning the modification of the algorithm of X (then Twitter) after its acquisition by Elon Musk. However, the practice of modifying an algorithm to repeatedly highlight the posts of a specific user is prohibited by the DSA, the European regulation on digital services. If it turns out to be true that the latter's content is artificially pushed by his social network, the slightest of his positions would in fact constitute electoral interference. A situation observed recently in Romania, where the European Commission opened an investigation into TikTok after the cancellation of the presidential election.
Elon Musk's very close proximity to Donald Trump, who will return to the White House on January 20, raises questions about how the EU will manage the issue of the social network July by the European Commission for three alleged infringements: deception of users with blue checkmarks supposed to certify sources of information, insufficient transparency around advertisements, non-compliance with the obligation of access to platform data by researchers approved. But no investigation into the structure of the algorithm is currently planned.
