Elon Musk Rebuked By Italian President Over Migration Tweets

Tom Jowitt,
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Elon Musk
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Elon Musk continues to provoke the ire of various leaders around the world with his tweets about immigration and other issues within those countries.

The Associated Press reported that the latest world leader to sharply rebuke Elon Musk is Italian President Sergio Mattarella, after Musk had earlier in the week tweeted on X (formerly Twitter) about Italian court rulings that stymied the government’s plans to process some asylum-seekers in Albania.

Musk wrote Tuesday on X that “these judges need to go,” in reference to the latest Italian court ruling against right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s much-touted Albania immigration deal.

Musk rebuked

“This is unacceptable. Do the people of Italy live in a democracy or does an unelected autocracy make the decisions?” Musk then wrote in a subsequent post Wednesday.

Musk’s tweets come after a court in Rome refused to rule on a formal request to detain seven migrants rescued at sea and transferred to Albania for processing.

Monday’s ruling reportedly resulted in the men being brought to Italy for processing.

Italian President Mattarella didn’t cite Musk by name but – in an unusually piqued statement – made clear on Wednesday that he was referring to him, the Associated Press reported.

Italy’s head of state demanded respect for the country’s sovereignty, especially from other soon-to-be public officials.

Musk was appointed by Donald Trump this week to co-led the non-government department called the Department of Government Efficiency.

“Italy is a great democratic country and … knows how to take care of itself while respecting its Constitution,” Mattarella said in a statement issued by his spokesman.

“Anyone, particularly if as announced is about to assume an important role of government in a friendly and allied country, must respect its sovereignty and cannot attribute to himself the task of imparting prescriptions,” the statement said.

Musk is reportedly a supporter of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the far-right-led government, and has met with her in Rome on a few occasions.

Other clashes

This is not the first time that Elon Musk has been rebuked by national leaders for his inflammatory tweets.

Earlier this year Musk was publicly rebuked by the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, after Musk had accused Australia of censorship following an Australian judge who had ordered X (as well as Meta Platforms) to block users worldwide from accessing video of a bishop being stabbed in a Sydney church.

Musk at the time tweeted from his personal account that “the Australian censorship commissar is demanding *global* content bans!”

But Prime Minister Albanese berated Musk in several television interviews, describing Musk as an “arrogant billionaire” who considered himself above the law and was out of touch with the public.

Elon Musk also earned the ire of the British government due to his inflammatory social media posts during riots across the country in July and August.

Musk compared the UK to the Soviet Union and tweeted about the alleged two tier British criminal justice system, which he cast as treating Muslims more leniently than far-right activists.

Elon Musk also repeatedly insulted UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, and claimed the United Kingdom was headed for civil war.

Musk later shared a fake news post from a far right organisation, about deporting rioters to the Falkland Islands, before he hurriedly deleted it without apologising – an action Musk has done previously when he was caught out promoting conspiracy theories.

Musk then criticised the UK government in September after he was notably not invited to the UK’s International Investment Summit of major investors.

Musk has also clashed with a Brazilian supreme court justice over free speech, far-right accounts and purported misinformation on X, which led to X being banned in the country until Musk backed down.