On Wednesday, Parliament approved the set of 26 commissioners, with 370 MEPs voting in favor, 282 voting against and 36 abstaining. Their confirmation marked the end of a monthslong transition process, which began with June’s European election and saw weeks of political infighting between the bloc’s left- and right-wing groups.
Commissioners — one from each EU country — are nominated by the heads of each national government. The Commission president, in this case Ursula von der Leyen, then assigns the policy portfolios to each of the nominees.
The picks are then quizzed by MEPs and voted on individually by the Parliament’s political groups, representatives of which can approve or reject each of the candidates. Then the cohort is voted on once again as a whole by the 720 lawmakers, during a plenary session in Strasbourg.
The billionaire tech entrepreneur has a history of liberally sharing his opinions on the political processes of other countries on his social media platform, X. In October, Musk got into an online spat with outgoing European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová, calling her “the epitome of banal, bureaucratic evil” after she dubbed him the “promoter of evil” amid ongoing regulatory fights relating to his tech platform.
Just this Monday, Musk took aim at the United Kingdom’s Labour government, labeling it a “tyrannical police state” and sharing a petition calling for an immediate general election. In July, Prime Minister Keir Starmer was elected in a landslide.
Musk’s political involvement took an exponential leap this summer when he threw his support behind Trump’s candidacy for U.S. president and poured millions of dollars into funding the Trump campaign. Ever since, Musk has been a close adviser to the president-elect, even accompanying him during a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and reportedly meeting with Iran’s envoy to the United Nations.
