Norway PM worried by Musk involvement outside US

Norway’s prime minister finds it worrying that billionaire Elon Musk is involving himself in the political issues of countries outside the United States.

Musk, a close ally of US President-elect Donald Trump, in December endorsed a German anti-immigration, anti-Islamic political party before that country’s national elections in February, and recently made remarks on British politics.

“I find it worrying that a man with enormous access to social media and huge economic resources involves himself so directly in the internal affairs of other countries,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK on Monday.

“This is not the way things should be between democracies and allies.”

If Musk were to involve himself in Norwegian politics, the country’s politicians should collectively distance themselves from such efforts, Stoere said.

Stoere’s minority government, consisting of his leftist Labour Party and the smaller Centre Party, is lagging right-wing parties in opinion polls ahead of parliamentary elections due in September.

But Stoere reiterated that he plans to lead the government into the parliamentary election, rejecting calls from some in his own party to step down.

“I’m very motivated to be party leader and prime minister, and to win the election,” he said.

Musk, the world’s richest person, spent more than $US250 million ($A400 million) to help Trump get elected and has been tasked by Trump to prune the federal budget as a special adviser.

The German government last week accused Musk, who owns social media platform X and is CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, of trying to influence Germany’s election with a guest opinion piece for the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck said Musk’s support for Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany was a “logical and systematic” play by the billionaire for a weak Europe that would not be able to regulate as strongly.