Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has voiced his support for Telegram founder Pavel Durov, who recently claimed that the French government attempted to pressure him into removing Romanian right-wing channels ahead of the presidential elections. Durov's stance against the alleged interference has drawn sharp responses from both Paris and Moscow.
In a statement on Sunday, Durov said that a Western European government had asked him to take down Romanian Telegram channels ahead of the country's presidential runoff. He declined, asserting, "You can’t ‘fight election interference’ by interfering with elections."
Musk, who also owns the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), responded with a brief but emphatic post: “Hear, hear!”
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Shortly after, the French foreign ministry admitted being the subject of the claims but strongly denied making any such request. In a subsequent post, Durov identified the official involved as Nicolas Lerner, director of France’s domestic intelligence agency, the DGSI.
The controversy unfolded as Romanian voters went to the polls on Sunday, with pro-EU candidate Nicusor Dan narrowly defeating Eurosceptic rival George Simion in a runoff.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova weighed in, sarcastically dismissing the Romanian election as “hardly democratic” and advising Bucharest to “avoid dragging other nations into its mess.”
The allegations have sparked a diplomatic war of words, adding another layer of tension to an already contentious European political landscape.
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