France’s Green Party leader and presidential candidate Marine Tondelier sparred with Elon Musk on Thursday after she called for his social media platform X to be banned during France’s 2027 presidential election.
The dispute followed Tondelier’s interview with the daily Liberation on Wednesday, in which she said platforms such as X could be banned during the election because of concerns over foreign interference, according to broadcaster BFMTV.
In the interview, Tondelier said Musk had a “supremacist ideology” and wanted to “push Europe into total submission to the United States.”
“Elon Musk has also made it very clear that he wants Marine Le Pen to be elected in France,” she said, referring to the parliamentary leader of the far-right National Rally party in the French National Assembly.
Musk responded to the remarks Thursday, writing on X: “I demand that she be shut down for treason against France!”
Tondelier condemned Musk’s post, saying she is the French presidential candidate whom Musk wants to “shut down for treason against France,” adding that she did not understand what he meant.
“France does not need lessons in patriotism from a foreign billionaire who thinks he gets to decide which European political leaders should be silenced. Democracy is not for sale. Not even to the richest man in the world,” she said.
Tondelier added that she would rather be accused of defending democracy than of trying to buy it.