This is on the Media's Midweek podcast. I'm Michael Onger. It's been a busy few weeks for Elon Musk.

His Department of Government Efficiency, also known as Doge, recently gained access to the Treasury's

payment system. That's, as one journalist put it, essentially America's checkbook.

Musk also announced that Trump has agreed to shut down the U.S. agency for international development, which distributes billions of dollars in aid around the world.

Doge is also said to be behind the letter that the Office of Personnel Management sent to

two million employees inviting them to

resign. And somewhere in there, Musk also found time to involve himself in politics abroad.

According to the Financial Times, 225 out of Musk's 616 tweets and retweets in the first week of January were about UK politics.

Meanwhile, Musk has praised the Prime Minister of Italy, far-right politician Georgia Maloney,

describing her as, quote, even more beautiful on the outside than on the inside.

That at a time when his company, SpaceX, is reportedly in talks for a $1 billion contract with the Italian government.

And then there's his entrance into the German political scene.

Elon Musk has once again voiced his support for the German far-right

political party, the alternative for Germany or AFD. He argued that the AFD represents hope

Germany needs as it, quote, teeters on the brink of economic and cultural collapse. Watching all

of this are Europe's leaders. Norway's Prime Minister says Musk's interventions are worrying.

And the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has said 10 years ago, he would have imagined that the owner of one of the world's largest social networks

would be intervening directly in elections.

This past weekend, there were major protests against Musk's favored party.

Over 150,000 people have gathered in Berlin

to call on Germany's other political parties

not to cooperate with the far-right AFD.

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