Musk not danger for democracy, Soros meddles says Meloni (5)

(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 9 - Elon Musk is not a danger for democracy with his statements on X on affairs in foreign countries and Hungarian-born US financier and philanthropist George Soros is the one meddling in other nations' politics, Premier Giorgia Meloni told a start of the year press conference in Rome Thursday.
    "Is the problem (with Musk) that he is rich and influential or that he is not left-wing?," she asked reporters.
    "Musk is not a danger to democracy.
    "Interference exists in other cases when wealthy people use resources to finance parties and associations around the world to influence policies, as in the case of Soros".
    "I don't take money from Musk, if anything, others took it from Soros. I don't see the danger to democracy".
    Asked her to comment on Musk's endorsement of Alternative for Germany and criticism of Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Social Democrats, Meloni replied: "I would like to recall the interference of the German side in the Italian (general election) campaign," referring to concerns about her rightwing stances.
    "We must bring things back to where they are, in the channel where they are.
    "Musk expresses his position and this is what we are talking about.
    "You may like it or not but when I am told that there is a danger of interference I point out that it is not the first case of well-known and wealthy people who express their opinions.
    "I have seen several cases and often against me and no one has been scandalized.
    "The problem is when these people use resources to finance parties and associations around the world to influence policies, something that I do not see Musk doing unlike Soros.
    "I consider this a dangerous interference.
    "But when it happened, people talked about philanthropists: is the problem that (Musk) is rich and influential or that he is not left-wing?".
    Meloni and the Tesla, SpaceX and X owner are friends.
    Among his other headline grabbing statements on his X platform, Musk has accused British Prime Minister Keir Starmer of being "deeply complicit" in child rape by grooming gangs which Musk said he had failed to prosecute, and has called Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips "a rape genocide apologist" for turning down calls for a second national inquiry into the rapes by British-Pakistani men - a claim that has forced police to up security for Phillips.
    The world's richest man has made several forays into Italian politics too, most notably when he said in November "these judges must go" after courts nixed the detention of the first small batches of migrants sent to processing centres in Albania under the government's innovative but controversial new deterrence policy.
    He also criticised prosecutors who had asked for a six-year term for former interior minister Matteo Salvini for allegedly abducting migrants as part of his closed ports policy in 2019.
    Salvini, another admirer of Musk and critic of Soros, was eventually acquitted.
    Salvini, now deputy premier and transport minister, has joined a longstanding chorus of opposition, led by Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban among others, to Soro's funding for liberal and pro-democracy movements in eastern Europe. (ANSA).