Elon Musk offered effusive praise for Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in brief remarks at an awards ceremony in New York, the latest sign of cosiness between a billionaire who's trying to get Donald Trump elected and a European leader at odds with her Group of Seven allies. Musk, bestowing an Atlantic Council Global Citizen Award on Meloni, said it was an honour to present the accolade to "someone who is even more beautiful on the inside than she was on the outside." "She's also someone who is authentic, honest, truthful - and that can't always be said about politicians," Musk added.
The remarks were in keeping with the warm relationship between Musk and Meloni, whose political roots on the right align her with Trump, even as she's backed the G-7's support of Ukraine in its struggle against the Russian invasion. At a festival organized by Meloni's right-wing Brothers of Italy party in December, Musk exhorted the crowd to "make more Italians" and warned of unchecked migration while addressing Italy's birth rate, which is the lowest in Europe. Meloni has refrained from backing either Trump or his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, saying she will work closely with whoever occupies the White House, given long-standing ties between the two countries.
After Musk spoke, Meloni delivered an implicit rebuke to the left, lamenting the desire to "to violently erase the symbols of our civilizations in the US as in Europe." "I know that we should not be ashamed to use .