Flattery from Macron
Musk hasn’t yet thrown his endorsement behind Marine Le Pen and the French far right. But President Macron — who, like Scholz in Germany, is politically fragile and facing domestic turbulence — is desperate to get him onside.
He has been urging the tech entrepreneur, alongside Trump, to attend a major artificial intelligence summit in Paris next month. The duo’s appearance at the recent Notre-Dame reopening was a diplomatic coup for Macron.
“Trump doesn’t seem to hold Paris in the same contempt he holds the EU or Germany,” said a Republican foreign policy expert working with Trump’s transition team, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the team’s internal thinking. “Macron can take solace in the fact that he’s not Scholz.”
Making life difficult for Macron, however, is the European Commission, which continues investigations into whether X complies with its information rules.
It has found the microblogging site in breach of the Digital Services Act, the EU’s landmark content moderation law, for the deceptive design of “verified” badges and a lack of transparency to researchers.
The jury is still out on X’s potential violations around the dissemination of illegal content and measures to fight information manipulation, and the Commission is mulling whether it could slap Musk with a mega-fine.
