When American billionaire Elon Musk attempted to interfere in Italian politics by criticizing the country’s judiciary – accusing it of blocking the migration policy of his “friend,” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni – he found himself up against a man from another world, another era. An old-school European. An old-school democrat. A discreet statesman with uncontested legitimacy, a republican deeply rooted in Christian values: the president of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, 83 years old.
“These judges need to go,” Musk wrote on November 12, 2024, on his social network X, as an outspoken backer of the global far right. The Italian president replied the following day, without even naming Musk: “Anyone (…) about to assume an important government role in a friendly and allied country must respect [Italy’s] sovereignty and cannot assume the task of imparting prescriptions.”
The clash between the world’s richest man, whose ambitions include interplanetary conquest, and the president of an ancient nation that is a cradle of classical European culture, crystallized the confrontation between two opposing visions of politics. On one side, the affirmation of an electoral autocracy, where a victorious election is the sole condition for unlimited power. On the other, a vision of democracy based on checks and balances and legal as well as philosophical constraints.
The president of the Italian Republic has stood as the guarantor of this second vision, even if it means subtly challenging the government’s direction. For the far-right leader, Musk is a valuable asset; for the president, he resembles the “new feudal lords.”
Sacrificial commitment
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