When Georgia’s government introduced a bill to curb, or at least identify, foreign influence and interference into its domestic politics last May, there was a chorus of disapproval. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan wrote on X: “We are deeply alarmed about democratic backsliding in Georgia. Georgian parliamentarians face a critical choice – whether to support the Georgian people’s EuroAtlantic aspirations or pass a Kremlin-style foreign agents’ law that runs counter to democratic values.”
The law, as I wrote at the time, stipulated that NGOs and independent media that received more than 20 per cent of their funding from foreign sources would have to register as “organisations serving the interests of a foreign power”. The Speaker of Georgia’s Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, explained that the legislation was needed to deal with “unaccountable foreign money, which freely flows into Georgia’s political system, including the radical groups”. Transparency was necessary, he said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen disagreed, insisting that “staying the course on the road” to eventual EU membership meant rejecting this law. A speech delivered on behalf of the then EU foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, included this statement: “The proposed legislation would limit the capacity of civil society and media organisations to operate freely, could limit freedom of expression and unfairly stigmatise organisations that deliver benefits to the citizens of Georgia.”
Let’s be clear. Not allowing organisations to hide foreign influence and money from Georgia’s population would “unfairly stigmatise” them.
Now the shoe is on the other foot. To my knowledge, Elon Musk hasn’t given any money to European NGOs or independent media, let alone handed over the $100 million that may have been promised to the UK’s Reform UK party. But European leaders are queuing up to denounce “foreign influence” when it comes to recent – admittedly, rather inflammatory – statements about the continent’s politics made by the X and Tesla owner.
“I find it worrying that a man with enormous access to social media and large financial resources is so directly involved in the internal affairs of other countries. This is not how it should be between democracies and allies,” Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said on Monday. Mr Musk’s support for the far-right German AfD led the country’s Christian Democrat leader, Friedrich Merz, to call him “intrusive and presumptuous”, while a government spokesperson accused him of “trying to influence the federal election” that will take place next month.
French President Emmanuel Macron joined in, saying: “Who could have imagined, 10 years ago, that the owner of one of the world’s largest social networks would intervene directly in elections, including in Germany?” And in Britain, the Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, posted on X: “People have had enough of Elon Musk interfering with our country’s democracy when he clearly knows nothing about Britain. It’s time to summon the US ambassador to ask why an incoming US official is suggesting the UK government should be overthrown.”
So when it comes to Mr Musk, who is expected to co-lead a new Department of Government Efficiency after Donald Trump is inaugurated, foreign intervention or interference is deemed wrong. That fits with the motivating spirit behind legislation in many countries. Britain now has a Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, to enable “transparency of foreign influence in UK politics”. The US has the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which even the former Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole had to register for over his advocacy for Taiwan.
Would these European leaders agree and approve of the fact that “a huge number of states … are doing everything to protect themselves from outside influence, from foreign influence on domestic politics”? Well, they might, if they didn’t know the words belonged to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
What Mr Musk’s case shows is that more or less instinctively, most people don’t like foreign interference in their domestic politics. It’s a violation of sovereignty. It’s not right for outsiders to tip the scales or provide enormous funding for political groups in countries with which they may have little connection. Overt support by western states for one group over others can feel like, and may well constitute, neo-colonialism in the developing world.
But Mr Musk has also exemplified one of the most important reasons why foreign interference is often harmful. And that is, as an outsider, he simply doesn’t know (or doesn’t know enough of) what he’s talking about. In the case of the UK, he has increased his support for a deeply unsavoury character who calls himself Tommy Robinson. Mr Musk appears to be confused about the true nature and past of this convicted criminal, who is considered so toxic and far right that not even the, let’s say, “robust-right” Reform UK party will have anything to do with him.
To be generous to Mr Musk, it might be assumed by some that his support for the AfD in Germany is linked to the fact that he is not known as an expert on international affairs, and much of his geopolitical understanding may be of the level of his X post earlier this week: “Wild times in Korea! What is actually the crux of the issue?”
You may say that Mr Musk is an exceptional case, but there have always been plenty of commentators and politicians ready to try to dictate or influence events in countries that they know little about. Remember the disappointment and surprise in certain quarters when it turned out that a substantial number of people in Egypt and Tunisia didn’t want to elect secular liberals?
This is the real problem with foreign interference of any kind. Outsiders will never know a country as well as its own people. In Malaysia, I’ve shaken my head so many times when I’ve heard foreign leaders or NGO heads declare what “should” happen – based on a superficial reading of the past couple of years or so. What I have discovered after a quarter century of visiting or living in the country is that its politics is like archaeology: you dig down a layer and think you’ve got the whole picture, only to find that if you dig a little more there is layer beyond layer still underneath.
So laws to protect the independence and integrity of domestic political systems are not only justified, they are increasingly necessary in a world overloaded with misinformation. But if they apply in the US or UK, and if European leaders want to reject foreign influence at home, then people in other countries such as Georgia must be allowed to do so as well. No one’s really going to stand up for “one rule for us, another rule for them”, are they?
