World’s richest man Elon Musk is fresh off a successful and expensive — though not for him — push to get President-elect Donald Trump back in the White House, and the Tesla and X chief (and DOGE co-chief) is making political waves in other countries too.
Musk has recently won both praise and condemnation for supporting a rightwing political movement in Germany, lauding the far-right party Alternative for Germany — AfD — and its leader Alice Weidel in an article under his signature in the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag. (Musk asserts that “only AfD can save Germany.”)
Closer to home are the political troubles of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a divisive liberal figure who Trump, Musk and others — including what appears to be the lion’s share of Canadian voters — want ousted.
Reporting by CBS Chicago, above, portrays Trudeau’s viability as Prime Minister as having reached “a point of no return.”
Musk is as good as anyone at smelling blood in the water and, as in Germany, the billionaire mogul is putting his foot on the political scale in Canada. Part of Musk’s power derives, of course, from pure economic might. But perhaps just as impactful as his money is his social/political influence — which, already strong, was increased by orders of magnitude after he bought Twitter and turned it into X.
This week Musk shared a podcast interview conducted by X regular Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychologist, influencer and author, with Canadian politician Pierre Poilievre, calling it a “great interview.”
That interview, shown below, is titled: “Canada’s Next Prime Minister | Pierre Poilievre.”
In expressing his approbation, Musk doesn’t specifically comment on the certitude inherent in the title. But the prediction market maker Polymarket recently put Poilievre’s chances of taking over Trudeau’s job at 87%. The Polymarket odds currently put Parliament member Chrystia Freeland in second at 6% and Trudeau in third at 4%.
Great interview https://t.co/UH5FAEsixZ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 3, 2025
