Elon Musk on Wednesday publicly endorsed French far-right leader Marine Le Pen for the 2027 presidential election, describing her on his social media platform X as “the last hope of France”. The statement marks the billionaire’s first explicit backing since Le Pen confirmed her candidacy this month, after a Paris appeals court ruling restored her eligibility despite a conviction for misappropriating European Parliament funds. The intervention extends a pattern of Musk using his platform to boost nationalist and populist figures across Europe.

Viewed from Paris, the endorsement drew a swift, if indirect, rebuke from the French government. Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot posted a French proverb on X — “only fools never change their minds” — in what was widely read as a call for Musk to reconsider. Other French officials were more direct: centrist MEP Nathalie Loiseau mocked the alignment of Le Pen with “the richest man in the world, the champion of profit at all costs”, while left-wing lawmakers denounced “foreign interference” and called on the media regulator Arcom to examine the matter. Within Le Pen’s own Rassemblement National (RN), the reaction was one of conspicuous silence. Party figures, analysts in Paris note, are acutely aware that association with Musk and his close ties to Donald Trump risks alienating voters Le Pen has courted by distancing herself from Trump’s “imperialism” and trade wars. The RN has spent years pursuing a strategy of “de-demonisation” to broaden its appeal, and the embrace of a polarising American billionaire is seen internally as a liability.

Le Pen enters the race as the frontrunner, with opinion polls consistently placing her at 35–36% in the first round, far ahead of potential rivals such as former prime minister Édouard Philippe or leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Her legal situation remains a complicating factor. The appeals court reduced her period of ineligibility to 15 months of effective time, already served since the initial March 2025 sentence, but she still faces a one-year term of house arrest with electronic monitoring and has lodged a final appeal with the Court of Cassation. That appeal suspends the monitoring requirement and keeps her candidacy legally viable, though a definitive ruling is not expected for months.

Musk’s intervention, viewed from European capitals, is part of a broader pattern. He previously called the German far-right AfD the “best hope for Germany” ahead of federal elections and backed the ultranationalist Romanian candidate Călin Georgescu before his first-round result was annulled. For European governments, the episode highlights the challenge posed by a private platform owner with over 240 million followers who can amplify political messages at will. The French presidential election is scheduled for April 2027, with the first round likely that month. The RN, according to political observers in Paris, is expected to continue its delicate balancing act, seeking to harness anti-establishment momentum while publicly minimising any link to Musk or Trump. The foreign ministry has not announced further steps, but the affair is likely to feed into ongoing parliamentary work on foreign information manipulation and digital platform regulation.