The Elon Musk Problem

If we were Secretary of State Rubio — a stretch to be sure — we wouldn’t be entirely comfortable with Elon Musk fetching up in Germany addressing a rally of the Alternative für Deutschland. We would feel the instinct to protect our own superior — President Trump — from freelancers on foreign policy. For whom is Mr. Musk speaking when he, say, tells the AfD not to feel guilt about the Holocaust? Is that America’s position?The rally in question occurred on Saturday at the German city of Halle. There were more than 4,000 attendees when Mr. Trump’s head of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, made a virtual appearance. He told the throngs that there is “frankly too much of a focus on past guilt and we need to move beyond that.” He added: “Children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their parents, their great-grandparents.”Mr. Musk has made no secret of his support of the right-wing party and its leader, Alice Weidel. He on Saturday called the AfD “the best hope for Germany.” The party has been rising in the polls ahead of nationwide elections next month, as it raises electoral strength outside of its East German heartland. The party, though, is hardly free and clear of what Mr. Musk calls the “sins” of Germany’s past. There is ample cause for concern. In respect of the AfD, we are watching the example of Prime Minister Meloni in Italy. She came to a crossroads, decided that she is not going anywhere near where Mussolini went, and has emerged as a leading figure in Europe. We, for one, would welcome the rise of a principles-based conservative party in Germany. It would be good for the country to confront its disastrous immigration policies, not to mention its stagnant economy.The AfD’s rise is roiling politics in Germany, with its longstanding taboo against working with the rightists. Yet on Wednesday, a strict AfD-backed immigration motion passed the Bundestag by a margin of 348 to 345. “What is right in principle is not made wrong by the fact that the wrong people vote for it,” is how the Christian Democrats’ leader, Friedrich Merz, justifies collaborating with the AfD. Chancellor Scholz had called it “an unforgivable mistake.”The immediate issue, in any event, is not the role of the AfD in German politics but of Mr. Musk in American foreign affairs. The world’s richest man last month ventured that Britain’s Reform Party “needs a new leader. Farage doesn’t have what it takes.” That is no minor demarche — it got more than 70 million views, last we looked — given that Mr. Farage, hero of Brexit, is seen as a potential contender for premier. Again — is this Mr. Trump’s position?We do not intend to decry entirely Mr. Musk’s emergence in affairs of state. His efforts to slim down the federal Leviathan are sanctioned by an elected government and deserve support, in the face of entrenched interests at Washington aiming to defend every line item of federal pork-barrel spending. Dabbling in global politics can only be a distraction from the task of cutting two trillion dollars from the government. The Constitution assigns the president the preeminent role in conducting foreign policy, though the advice and consent of the Senate is needed to conclude treaties — and to confirm officials like Mr. Rubio, who is tasked with executing the president’s vision for America’s role in the world. Mr. Musk’s freelancing as a kind of ambassador-at-large risks generating a foreign policy at odds with itself. The Senate has just confirmed a fine secretary of state.

The Elon Musk Problem

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