By Reuters
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said on Monday that he found it worrying that billionaire Elon Musk was involving himself in the political issues of countries outside of the United States.
Musk, a close ally of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, last month endorsed a German anti-immigration party ahead of a parliamentary election in February, and has repeatedly commented on British politics, demanding Prime Minister Keir Starmer resign.
“I find it worrying that a man with enormous access to social media and huge economic resources involves himself so directly in the internal affairs of other countries,” Stoere told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK.
“This is not the way things should be between democracies and allies.”
If Musk were to involve himself in Norwegian politics, the country’s politicians should collectively distance themselves from such efforts, the prime minister said.
Stoere’s minority government, consisting of his leftist Labour Party and the smaller Centre Party, is lagging right-wing parties in opinion polls ahead of parliamentary elections due in September this year.
But Stoere reiterated that he plans to lead the government into the parliamentary election, rejecting calls from some in his own party to step down.
“I’m very motivated to be party leader and prime minister, and to win the election,” he said.
Musk, the world’s richest person, spent more than $250 million to help Trump get elected and has been asked by Trump to prune the federal budget as a special adviser.
The German government last week accused Musk, who owns the social media platform X and is CEO of Tesla TSLA.O and SpaceX, of trying to influence Germany’s upcoming election with a guest opinion piece for the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.
German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said Musk’s support for Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) was a “logical and systematic” play by the billionaire for a weak Europe that will not be able to regulate as strongly.
