Elon Musk enters French presidential election  line, sparks outrage in Paris

American billionaire Elon Musk has expressed his direct and explicit support for the candidate of the National Rally party, Marine Le Pen, in her electoral battle to reach the French presidency in 2027, describing her as "France's last hope."

Musk's announcement, which is the chairman of Tesla and SpaceX, came in a brief post broadcast on his favorite platform X, reacting to a recent French poll indicating a "huge leap" in voting intentions for the National Rally candidate in recent weeks, confirming his full alignment with her political vision.

In April 2025, Musk  was quick  to announce his support for Le Pen following a preliminary court ruling disqualifying her from voting for five years, in a case of embezzlement of public funds filed against her and former European parliamentary aides belonging to the National  Front party.

Musk wrote at the time on the same platform that he was encouraging Le Pen to move beyond what he described as "persecution" and run in the upcoming presidential election.

Musk's new post coincided with the final ruling by the French Court of Appeal on July 7, which sentenced Le Pen to three years in prison (of which two years are suspended and one year is commutable), in addition to disqualifying her from voting for 45 months, including 30 months suspended, a ruling that officially guaranteed her to retain her candidacy and remain in the 2027 presidential race.

Anger in Paris and accusations of foreign interference

Elon Musk's meddling in French politics has sparked a wave of angry responses from far-right opponents and government officials, with French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrow quick to blog and criticize the billionaire, saying, "Only a fool never changes his mind."

The European Commissioner and former French Minister of Economy, Thierry Breton, warned of the danger of this trend, saying that the seasons of electoral interventions have already begun, stressing that Musk's support for Le Pen is his personal right, but it is up to the regulatory authorities to ensure that the "X" algorithm does not discriminate or promote a political candidate at the expense of another, stressing that the rule of law should apply to everyone without exception.

Nathalie Loazo, a member of the European Parliament from the "Renewing Europe" bloc, attacked the relationship between the two parties, describing Musk as the richest man in the world, a pioneer of profit at any cost, and a person who flouts European laws and supports the continent's most extreme parties after reconciling with Donald Trump.

Antoine Leumman, a lawmaker from the left-wing France Fathers party, condemned what he considered a blatant foreign interference in French sovereignty, calling on the High Authority for the Regulation of Audiovisual and Digital Communication (ARCOM) to take immediate action, and warning of the dangers of manipulating elections through targeted digital algorithms.

A track record of meddling in European politics

Media reports confirmed that this incident is not the first in which Elon Musk has tried to guide foreign and electoral policy in Europe, as he has a long record of siding with the symbols of nationalist and populist currents in the old continent and promoting their ideas through his strategic platform.

In December 2024, the American billionaire claimed that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was the only entity capable of saving Germany, considering in an op-ed published by the German newspaper "Die Welt" that the classification of the party as an extremist current is clearly wrong, citing the personal life of the party's leader Alice Wiedel, statements that sparked a wave of anger at the time that included various political spectrums in Berlin and Brussels.