Our World Meets a New Rasputin

Joe Biden will visit Europe in the final days leading up to Jan. 20, when he’ll turn the White House over to its new occupant. Biden’s first stop will be Italy.*

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited President-elect Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida just days before outgoing President Joe Biden was set to leave office and arrive in Italy. That’s quite significant. Enough so that it evokes a cry of the king is dead, long live the king.

Elon Musk was undoubtedly present at the Trump-Meloni meeting.

Musk is the most well-known personality among the advisers who will govern the U.S. alongside Trump; Musk bought Twitter and rebranded it as X . He provided vital support to Trump in the presidential election and appears to be testing his election-winning influence in an unofficial mission to help decide who takes power in Europe, while also officially engaging on immigration policy, an item of high priority for the Trump administration.

The first European politician elected with aid from Musk, who can only be described as businessman, was Prime Minister Meloni. In Italy, which was at one time the European country where a left-wing rise to power was most feared, Meloni stands as the most right-wing politician since Benito Mussolini.

She is her country’s first female prime minister. After she took office in October 2022, Musk was at her side to offer support in clashes with Italian President Sergio Mattarella’s establishment politics.

Musk has made it clear that he sees Italy as the first link in the European new world order he’s formulated. It looks like Austria, Germany and the United Kingdom will follow, judging by the interest he’s taken in their affairs.

The distinguishing characteristic of the ideology and government candidates that adviser Musk is supporting is “anti-Islam.”

In Austria, a country that still bears scars from the Nazi era, the Freedom Party is gaining significant ground for the first time, and party leader Herbert Kickl seems to have revived the term “Volkskanzler” (people’s chancellor) – a title Adolf Hitler used – along with further rhetoric from the period.

Musk’s aim in Germany is to have the relatively new Alternative for Germany party, formed in 2013, along with its co-leader Alice Weidel, come to power in place of the parties that have dominated the country’s politics in the post-war era.

And he isn’t keeping it a secret. Musk has called current German Chancellor Olaf Scholz an “idiot,” and urged Germans to vote for the AfD over parties he has described as antiquated in the election taking place next month.

In the U.K., he’s going after the Labour Party, which emerged victorious in the last election, along with its leader and new Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Musk doesn’t shy away from using X to spread lies about the incumbent party and its leader.

It was previously believed that Musk sought to replace Starmer with hard right Reform Party Leader Nigel Farage, who has appeared alongside Trump in recent years. Farage believes that Musk – who he wastes no chance to laud as a “hero” – would provide large-scale financial backing to Reform as the election approaches, just as Musk did to bolster Trump’s odds of victory in the U.S. election. Farage expected at least $100 million in support.

However, Musk made his support conditional on Farage stepping down as party leader — because Musk didn’t consider Farage to be ideologically adequate. The man he’s backing instead is Rupert Lowe. Lowe is aligned with Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known by the code name Tommy Robinson, a recognized Islamophobe currently serving time in prison for anti-Islam agitation.

Meloni in Italy, Kickl in Austria, Lowe in the United Kingdom, Weidel in Germany.

The trait that all four share is anti-Islam. All of them favor deporting immigrants back to their home countries.

They’ve given voice to other notable rhetoric as well, but it’s all of secondary importance. (Meloni opposes homosexuality, though Weidel is married to a woman.)

As Trump retakes the reins of the United States, Musk, who holds power that is reminiscent of Russian Tsarina Alexandra’s Rasputin — will govern along with him.

Are we ready for such a world?

*Editor’s Note: Joe Biden’s visit to Italy was canceled on Jan. 8, 2025 so he could monitor the Los Angeles, California wildfires.