Elon Musk heaped praise on Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in brief remarks at an awards ceremony in New York, the latest sign of rapprochement between a billionaire trying to get Donald Trump elected and a European leader at odds with his G-7 allies.
Musk presented Meloni with the Atlantic Council Global Citizen Award, saying it was an honor to bestow the honor “on a woman who is so much more beautiful on the inside than she is on the outside.”
“He’s an authentic, honest and integrity person — and that can’t always be said about politicians,” Musk said.
The comment was in keeping with the warm relationship between Musk and Meloni, whose political roots are on the right wing, aligning him with Trump even though he has backed the G-7’s support for Ukraine in its struggle against Russian aggression.
At an event organised by Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy party in December, Musk called on the crowd to “make more Italians” and warned against uncontrolled migration while speaking about Italy’s birth rate, which is one of the lowest in Europe.
Meloni has refrained from endorsing either Trump or his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, saying she would work closely with whoever sits in the White House given the long-term relationship between the two countries.
After Musk spoke, Meloni issued a clear rebuke of the left, lamenting “the willingness in the US, as in Europe, to violently erase the symbols of our civilizations.”
“I know that we should not be ashamed to use and defend words and concepts like nation and patriotism, words that mean much more than a physical place,” Meloni said. “They mean a state of mind to which one belongs.”
Meloni is in New York with leaders from more than 190 countries for the annual high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. On Sunday, he met with Sundar Pichai and Sam Altman, the chief executives of Alphabet Inc. and OpenAI Inc.
Politico reported last week that the decision to award the Global Citizen Award to the prime minister and Musk to present it to him angered some former and current Atlantic Council staffers because of their differences on Ukraine and immigration.
According to a media package distributed by the Atlantic Council, Meloni was given the award “for her strong support for the European Union and for becoming Italy’s first female prime minister.”
Musk has business interests in Italy. He and Meloni have planned a closed-door meeting later this month to discuss investment opportunities in Italy’s space and artificial intelligence sectors, according to people familiar with the matter.
Italy in June approved a new regulatory framework allowing foreign space companies to operate in the country, a move expected to generate investments of about 7.3 billion euros ($8.1 billion).
Italy already has access to Musk’s Starlink service, which provides broadband internet via a global network of more than 6,000 satellites operated by his Space Exploration Technologies Corporation.
Meloni has also shown interest in artificial intelligence, though he sounded a note of caution about the technology in a speech he delivered at the UN’s Future Summit on Monday. He called AI a “great multiplier” but warned it could exacerbate global imbalances.
“Machines will not answer this question,” he said. “Politics must ensure that artificial intelligence is controlled by humans and that humans remain at the center.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
