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Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is pushing back on the idea that he supports the “far right,” quipping in a recent interview that he backs “normal people” and slamming the media for its coverage of conservatives.
In an interview published Thursday by The Economist, Editor-in-Chief Zanny Minton Beddoes suggested Musk “supports not just the populist right, but the far right — in fact, very fringe parties in some countries.”
Musk, a former ally and adviser to President Trump, interjected, saying, “No, I support the normal people. What you call the far right, falsely.”
“Literally, you could go back 10 or 15 years and these policies were completely normal,” the tech mogul continued.
Beddoes said she agrees that “the center of gravity in this country has shifted, certainly the Democratic Party shifted to the left, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”
She said she was discussing figures such as Rupert Lowe, a member of the United Kingdom Parliament who leads the far right political party Restore Britain.
“It’s just normal people,” Musk repeated. “Here are the principles, and tell me, which of these sound terrible. That we should have secure borders? That we should have safe cities? That we should have sensible spending? Which of those three are far right fringe?”
When Beddoes tried to answer, Musk said he wanted to “admonish” her and the media for “the absurd characterization of the far right.”
“It is false and misleading and nonsense,” he added.
Musk has a history of weighing in on international and domestic politics, often slamming the left for its politics and the mainstream media for its coverage choices.
At the start of 2025, he backed the far-right German political party Alternative for Germany, while urging the release of far-right activist Tommy Robinson.
While joining Trump on the campaign trail and later serving as the head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk frequently expressed support for Republican politics and poured in more than $250 million to back Trump’s return to the White House.
During his time at DOGE, he and his companies faced intense backlash over the initiative’s sweeping job and funding cuts across the federal government.
Later in the interview, Musk suggested “he got carried away” during his brief time in the political world.
“I think I got a little too involved in politics,” Musk said. “I got carried away, frankly.”
Since Musk’s departure from DOGE in late May 2025, the initiative waned down, and DOGE officially shut down operations July 4.
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