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Elon Musk has become embroiled in an unprecedented public row with Germany’s foreign ministry over the country’s policy of helping organisations that rescue migrants in the Mediterranean Sea and bring them to Italian shores.
The row began last Friday when a far-right social media account called RadioGenoa wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter and owned by Musk, that German NGO ships in the Mediterranean were “collecting illegal immigrants to be unloaded in Italy”. It said the NGOs were “subsidised by the German government”.
Musk reposted the message, adding: “is the German public aware of this?” The foreign ministry responded: “Yes. And it’s called saving lives.”
The billionaire replied, saying: “So you’re actually proud of it. Interesting. Frankly, I doubt that a majority of the German public supports this. Have you run a poll?”
“Surely it is a violation of the sovereignty of Italy for Germany to transport vast numbers of illegal immigrants to Italian soil?” he went on. “Has invasion vibes . . . ”
Musk’s tweets come amid rising anger in Italy’s rightwing coalition government over Berlin’s funding of humanitarian groups conducting search-and-rescue missions in the Mediterranean, as Rome struggles to cope with a surge of migrants arriving from north Africa.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni believes such charities encourage more migrants to undertake the dangerous crossing, and her government has tried to restrict their operations since taking power.
In a letter to German chancellor Olaf Scholz last week, Meloni expressed shock and dismay at Berlin’s renewal of funding for the organisations at a time when Rome was already dealing with “exceptional migratory pressure”.
More than 133,000 migrants have arrived in Italy by crossing the Mediterranean so far this year, up from 71,000 in the same period last year.
In her letter to Scholz, Meloni argued that migrants rescued by German-funded charities should be taken to Germany rather than Italy, and said Berlin’s policies had “the direct effect of multiplying the departure of precarious boats, which not only increases the burden for Italy but increases the risk of new tragedies at sea”.
Berlin has its own conflict with Rome, which it accuses of failing to properly register many of the migrants who travel on and end up in Germany. The German government last month briefly suspended and then resumed an ad hoc deal to alleviate the burden on Italy by taking in some of the people rescued in the Mediterranean.
German politicians reacted with anger to Musk’s intervention. Erik Marquardt, a Green member of the European parliament, asked him on X: “Why are you spreading lies? Only 8% of the migrants are rescued by NGOs. It’s a far-right conspiracy theory.”
There was also concern that the RadioGenoa post Musk endorsed backed the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right party. “Let’s hope AfD wins the elections to stop this European suicide,” it said, apparently a reference to critical regional elections in Bavaria and Hesse next Sunday.
Jan Philip Albrecht, co-chairman of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, which is close to the Greens, accused Musk of starting a “pro-AfD campaign”. Writing on X, he called on European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to “stop the election propaganda” on the platform — otherwise “we can write off a resilient and democratic public space in the EU”.
Musk later posted that he had not “supported” any political party and “don’t know AfD from a hole in the ground”.
Musk is intervening increasingly often in the debate over migration. Last week he visited the US border with Mexico to meet local politicians and representatives of law enforcement officials in order, as he put it, to build up an “unfiltered” view of the situation. He called for an expansion of legal immigration and restrictions on irregular border crossings.