Elon Musk’s personal foreign policy of promoting far-right parties is sparking outrage among leaders in Europe and handing them a dilemma: How do they rebuke the tech titan without angering his new patron — Donald Trump?

Musk could easily be dismissed as a mischievous antagonist who simply loves to shock and is pursuing his own obsessions one X post at a time.

But he’s not just some troll. He’s the world’s richest man, owns some of the globe’s most strategic and influential businesses, and is wielding a mighty social media network. Musk is highlighting his enormous influence as a populist force galvanizing political provocateurs as a kind of one-man supranational non-state power.

He’s also previewing the international disruption that likely lies in store when the president-elect returns to the White House in two weeks and the potential conflicts of interest ahead. That’s because the Tesla and SpaceX pioneer will not simply be a powerful free agent — but an inner circle adviser to the new US government at the head of the Department of Government Efficiency. It’s therefore going to be hard to know where Musk’s policy ends and official US foreign policy starts.

To foreigners, his attacks on elected officials with whom he disagrees risk coming across as an attempt by a future US government to interfere in the politics of fellow democracies and sovereign nations to destabilize their governments.

And his moves beg the question of whether he’s working at Trump’s direction, is seen by the president-elect as a useful vanguard of disruption or could soon end up irking the 47th president as he tries to put his stamp on the world.

“Will Musk be carrying out Trump’s foreign policy agenda, acting as a personal ambassador of Trump to everywhere?” said Lindsay Gorman, managing director and senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund. “Or will Musk be advancing his own vision for global affairs, which may align with Trump in some ways, but not in others. And then what will be the power dynamics between those two?”

Trump’s willingness to tolerate Musk’s fierce attacks on allied leaders is also a sign that the coming months could be even more rocky for America’s friends than his first term. That reality played out Monday when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation. Trudeau had long since squandered the trust of Canadians and his own Liberal Party. But Trump’s threats of imposing a 25% tariff exacerbated the political crisis in Ottawa and may have hastened the departure of an antagonist Trump branded the “governor” of America’s 51st state.

The apparent sense of freedom that Trump and Musk feel in playing politics abroad is also a marker of the self-confidence in MAGA world ahead of Trump’s inauguration. They’re demonstrating a belief that their strength allows them to bully smaller countries and may augur a new and brasher incarnation of “America First.”

European leaders line up to condemn Musk

Musk’s attacks — conveyed to his 211 million followers on X — have snapped the patience of the leaders of some of America’s closest traditional allies and stoked already elevated transatlantic tensions ahead of Trump’s second term.

— British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has been targeted by Musk for weeks, warned the SpaceX owner had crossed “a line” after he said the British minister responsible for safeguarding children should be jailed and was an apologist for rape.

— French President Emmanuel Macron accused Musk of fueling a new “international reactionary movement” and intervening in elections.

— Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said it was “worrying” that a man with such power was so directly involved in the affairs of other countries.

— The German government has already criticized the multi-billionaire for backing a far-right pro-Russia party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), in upcoming elections. Musk will host the party’s leader in an interview on X this week.

The resentment provoked by Musk reflects the core ideology of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement. He is going after establishment politicians and seeking to promote far-right, outsider populists whose views and temperaments mirror those of the president-elect. In Europe, as in the United States, many voters have become resentful of governments they believe have failed to improve their economic situations and to stem immigration.

To many Americans, Musk is simply exercising his First Amendment rights. But in Europe, a continent haunted by the horror of far-right extremism, his support for radical populism is seen by many leaders as offensive and less an example of free speech than an attempt to stifle freedoms and democracy.

If there’s a strategy in Musk’s rabble rousing, it’s that opposition forces in these countries are far more in line with Trump’s anti-immigration and anti-free trade instincts than the leaders who are currently in place. And Trump may be hoping to promote political interlocutors who would be more sympathetic to him.

In France, for instance, the far-right National Rally party (formerly known as the National Front) of Marine Le Pen has its best chance yet in 2027 to win in the two-round presidential election system that has always blocked it from power. While the AfD is unlikely to form a government in the German system that promotes coalitions, its influence may grow after federal elections in February.

And Trump has already rolled out the red carpet at Mar-a-Lago to far-right European leaders including Hungary’s strongman Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Italy’s right-wing populist Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who may be the strongest national leader in the European Union right now.

Trumpism is incompatible with some of America’s allies

The nationalist DNA of Trump’s foreign policy is often a reaction to policies and demeanor of center-left leaders in the West.

This may help explain the president-elect’s tormenting of Trudeau — who, as a self-professed feminist who offered a warm welcome to immigrants, is the antithesis of MAGA. Trudeau is likely to be succeeded in the short-term by a Liberal Party prime minister, but the most likely outcome of a general election that must take place this year is a new government under Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre. The Albertan shares some of Trump’s populist tendencies, including on immigration, and his penchant for awarding his opponents mocking nicknames. But he has also condemned Trump’s branding of Canada as the 51st state, and at the helm of a majority government, he might turn out to be a more formidable negotiator on trade issues than a severely weakened Trudeau.

Similarly, if Musk is trying to destabilize Starmer, his actions spring from a misunderstanding of Britain’s political dynamics. The Labour Party leader has just won a huge landslide and won’t have to face the electorate for again for nearly five years. And Musk even the far-right Reform Party leader Nigel Farage, the father of Brexit and a friend of Trump, is now deemed by Musk as insufficiently radical after he said he didn’t agree with the X owner’s support for jailed anti-Muslim far-right campaigner Tommy Robinson.

Starmer felt compelled to speak out after Musk used X to accuse him of being complicit in the actions of grooming gangs in a historic child abuse scandal that he handled while director of public prosecutions. In other distortions of the truth, Musk also claimed Jess Phillips, the government safeguarding minister, was “pure evil” and a “wicked creature.”

Starmer warned that “those that are spreading lies and misinformation, as far and as wide as possible – they’re not interested in victims, they’re interested in themselves.” He added: “When the poison of the far right leads to serious threats to Jess Phillips and others, then in my book, a line has been crossed.”

Despite Starmer’s tough tone, the showdown with Musk is unwelcome turbulence for a prime minister, who, like all other world leaders, has been trying to build a relationship with Trump to spare his nation from the worst consequences of a new US foreign policy built on forcing American might on friends and foes alike.

But the transatlantic fury might soon become a problem for Trump as well.

Despite his transactional instincts and desire to intimidate other leaders, Trump may need the help of American allies one day, and Musk’s antics are making it far harder for them to accommodate an incoming American president who is already deeply unpopular in many of their nations.

Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, the party with the third most members in Britain’s House of Commons, reflected that antipathy toward Trump on Monday. “People have had enough of Elon Musk interfering with our country’s democracy when he clearly knows nothing about Britain,” Davey said, ironically, on X. “It’s time to summon the US ambassador to ask why an incoming US official is suggesting the UK government should be overthrown.”

Musk’s jabs might also cause problems stateside. They already look like a headache for more conventional US foreign policy officials, including Marco Rubio, the Florida senator Trump has picked to serve as secretary of state, and Florida Rep. Michael Waltz, his pick for national security adviser.

“I think it’s going to get very confusing very quickly. I don’t envy the career diplomats at the State Department, who are certainly going to have their hands full trying to figure out whose agenda they’re carrying out,” said Gorman.

Apparent conflicts between US policy and Musk’s business interests pose another complication. He has already sat in on calls between Trump and world leaders like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose forces use Musk’s Starlink internet system to support their war against Russia.

Musk’s massive commercial exposure in China might also weigh heavily on Trump’s approach and may clash with the hawkish instincts of Waltz and Rubio, who are set to be part of the most anti-Beijing Cabinet in modern American history.

In Trump’s first term, when he made foreign policy by tweet, America became a force for global disruption. Musk’s prominent role in his second administration may make those four years seem stable by comparison.

Potential home shoppers in the Northeast and Midwest may be in for disappointment: Despite signs of cooling in the last year’s intensively competitive housing market, a new report from Zillow says some areas will stay especially competitive this year.

The Zillow report predicts the hottest housing markets for 2025; Buffalo, a city that sits on New York’s western border with Canada, tops the list.

Buffalo has two new jobs per home permitted, according to the report. That means Buffalo could see an influx of new workers moving to the city – pushing homebuilding to fall further behind housing demand, said Skylar Olsen, Zillow’s chief economist. As a result, Buffalo’s home prices are forecast to grow an additional 3% in 2025 after jumping nearly 6% last year, according to the report.

Buying a home has grown more difficult for many Americans amid elevated mortgage rates and a lack of affordable options, fostering frustrations so deep they even helped shape anger at incumbents in last year’s US elections. Now, Zillow’s report shows that the deck could still be stacked against home shoppers in many major American cities this year.

Indianapolis; Providence, Rhode Island; Hartford, Connecticut; and Philadelphia are also expected to remain hot markets this year, according to Zillow. Home prices in those cities are expected to grow between 3% and 4% on average.

Zillow, an online real estate marketplace, ranked the nation’s 50 most populous metros by “hotness” by combining its internal home value growth projections with how quickly homes are selling and publicly available job growth and home permitting data.

Many economists expected mortgage rates to fall by the end of last year, especially after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates three times in 2024. But mortgage rates, which determine the interest paid on home loans, have stayed higher than expected. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 6.91% last week, according to Freddie Mac.

Elevated mortgage rates have kept existing homeowners with lower mortgage rates reluctant to sell, effectively “locking” them into their current homes.

“Areas like Buffalo and a lot of the Northeast are so locked in, and existing owners are just holding on,” Olsen said.

But buyers who are open-minded might find more favorable conditions elsewhere.

Zillow predicts home prices to fall in several cities in 2025, including New Orleans, San Francisco, San Jose and Austin.

“In less competitive markets, you have much longer to make your decision, homes spend longer on the market and there are more available,” Olsen said.

However, homeownership in a city like New Orleans or Austin may be a double-edged sword. Falling home prices may mask other costs.

Louisiana, Texas and California have seen homeowners’ insurance costs skyrocket in the past few years, as insurance companies seek to recuperate losses from natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires, according to a report last year from online insurance marketplace Insurify.

Multiple Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians have been reported in parts of the occupied West Bank after gunmen killed three settlers and injured eight others earlier on Monday in the latest explosion of violence there.

While tensions have been rising in the West Bank for years, the October 7 attacks by Hamas and the subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza has ushered in a volatile new chapter in the occupied territory.

Attacks on Palestinian communities by Israeli settlers, emboldened by their country’s offensive in Gaza and support from Israel’s right-wing government, have increased – while there have also been attacks against the settlers.

Earlier on Monday, Israeli vehicles were targeted on Route 55 in Al-Funduq, a Palestinian village in the West Bank, according to Israeli authorities. The road, which snakes through the northern West Bank, passes through the Jewish settlement of Kedumim.

Two women in one car were shot dead and a man in a second car 160 yards away died of gunshot wounds, Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency service said.

A further eight people were injured in the attack, including the bus driver, who was shot in his limbs and abdomen, according to the MDA.

The deadly shooting sent tensions soaring and within hours the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported multiple attacks on Palestinians.

On the incident in Hajja, the Israeli military said they received several reports on Monday evening of “Israeli civilians who entered the village” and had “caused damage to property” and Israeli came to the scene.

Two more incidents were reported southeast of Ramallah where Israeli settlers set fire to an agricultural room in the town of Turmus Ayya on Monday evening, according to security sources who told WAFA. Meanwhile Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian vehicles with stones near Bethlehem, according to WAFA.

‘Settle accounts’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed retaliation following the attack by gunmen earlier in the day. In a statement on X, he pledged to “find the abhorrent murderers and settle accounts with them and with all those who aided them. No one will get away.”

Netanyahu is expected to hold a cabinet meeting on Tuesday and discuss the West Bank.

While there has been no claim of responsibility yet for the shooting, it has been praised by the Palestinian militant group Hamas and been labelled a “terrorist attack” by Israel.

Speaking at the scene, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief Herzi Halevi said the “clock is ticking” for the attackers, and vowed to track down those responsible, make the route safer, and intensify Israel’s “intense and wide-ranging” operations “against terrorism” in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli authorities later identified the two women as Aliza Reiss and Rachel Cohen – two civilian residents of Kedumim, both in their 70s – and the man as Yaakov Winkelstein, a police investigator from Ariel, a settlement south of the site of the attack.

Rephaela Segal, assistant mayor of Kedumim, described the women as “young in nature” and said Cohen had been volunteering as a special education teacher in her retirement. Reiss was a counselor at a high school in a nearby settlement, Karnei Shomron, and both were traveling to Karnei Shomron at the time of the attack, Segal said.

This isn’t the first time in recent months that violence has broken out in this part of the West Bank. In August 2024, a group of 30 armed Israeli settlers attacked Jit, a Palestinian town just 10 minutes from Kedumim. They fired bullets, tear gas and set homes and cars on fire, according to residents who witnessed the attack.

Volatile new chapter

Recent international focus on the region has been largely on Israel’s military operations in Gaza. But another major escalation of violence has been playing out around 60 miles away in the Israeli-occupied West Bank where 3.3 million Palestinians are living under Israeli military occupation surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers. Such Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law and by much of the international community.

According to the UN, more than 500 Palestinian civilians were killed in the West Bank during 2024, with children bearing much of the violence. The UN said in December that 2024 had been a deadlier year for Palestinian children in the West Bank than the prior seven years combined. Since the October 7 attacks in 2023, at least 169 children have been killed by Israeli forces and Jewish settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to the UN.

Meanwhile, 2024 was the third-deadliest year for Israelis in the West Bank since data collection began in 2008, according to the UN, which recorded the deaths of 34 Israelis – 15 soldiers and 19 civilians. Of those civilians, seven were settlers.

In August, the US announced sanctions against an Israeli organization, Hashomer Yosh, allegedly responsible for supporting settler violence in the West Bank against Palestinians, according to a State Department spokesperson.

Attacks have also come as the Israeli government ramped up approvals of Israeli settler housing. In July, Israel’s government approved a large land seizure in the occupied West Bank – the biggest since the 1993 Oslo Accords set out a path for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, according to the Israeli rights group Peace Now. The area was converted to state land, according to a document from the body, but the official notice wasn’t posted until days after, Peace Now said.

On Wednesday, the Israeli government is due to hold a construction planning meeting to discuss Israeli settlements housing approvals, the sixth consecutive week of Settlement Contruction Planning Meetings, according to Peace Now.

“The shift to weekly planning meetings represents both a normalization and intensification of settlement construction,” Peace Now said, adding that if the coming plans are approved, “the six-week total will reach 2,377 housing units. At this rate, 2025 could set new records, with projections exceeding 1,500 units per month,” Peace Now said, adding that it’s as a result of “policy changes” that have been introduced by Netanyahu and the current government.

Azerbaijan’s leader has accused Moscow of carrying out a “cover up” over a passenger jet crash last month that claimed 38 lives, as relations sour between the two neighbors.

While meeting on Monday with the two surviving flight attendants and families of other crew members that died, President Ilham Aliyev said the preliminary investigation into the crash had confirmed that the plane was hit by Russian air defenses, according to Azerbaijan’s state news agency (AZERTAC).

The airspace above Grozny, the capital city of the southern Russian republic of Chechnya, was only closed after the plane was hit, Aliyev alleged.

Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 was traveling from the Azerbaijani capital Baku to Grozny, but was forced to make an emergency landing in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day. Thirty-eight of the 67 people on board died in the crash.

“I can confidently say that the guilt for the deaths of Azerbaijani citizens in this accident lies with the representatives of the Russian Federation,” Aliyev said. “We demand justice, we demand punishment of the guilty, we demand complete transparency and humane treatment.”

Days after the crash, Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized that the “tragic incident occurred in Russian airspace,” but did not accept responsibility.

Putin said Russia’s air defense systems were active when the plane attempted to land in Grozny, according to the Kremlin, and that the area was being attacked by Ukrainian combat drones.

Aliyev on Monday again accused Russia of a “cover up,” saying the “focus on absurd versions” of the crash has ignited “surprise, regret and rightly indignation” in Azerbaijan.

“If the city of Grozny had taken timely measures to close Russian airspace over its territory, if all the rules of ground services had been observed, and if there had been coordination between the armed forces and civil services of the Russian Federation, then this tragedy would not have happened,” he said.

In a break from protocol, his televised comments were made in Russian rather than Azerbaijani.

Aliyev also praised the flight’s crew for their heroism and bravery, hailing the pilots’ “professionalism” and ability to make an emergency landing to save some of those onboard.

People from Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan were on board the plane, which was a Brazilian-made Embraer 190.

Brazil’s air force said Monday its investigators had completed the extraction of data from two black box recorders that were recovered from the crash, Reuters reported. The flight recorders had been sent to Brazil, where international experts were joined by their Azerbaijani counterparts to analyze the devices in a move to ensure transparency and credibility, according to Kazakhstan state news agency.

The data has been sent to the Kazakh authorities investigating the crash, according to Reuters. Kazakhstan’s government is cooperating with Azerbaijan on the investigation.

Separately, Russia’s investigative committee has opened a criminal case in relation to the disaster, the Kremlin said.

Video and images after the plane crashed showed perforations in the plane’s body that look like damage from shrapnel or debris. The cause of the holes has not been confirmed.

“I am sure that in the near future we will learn the initial results, and everything will fall into place. The whole picture of the tragedy that occurred will also become known,” Aliyev said. “Of course, this will be an important moment in the full investigation of the tragedy and the punishment of its perpetrators.”

A Spanish woman was gored to death by an elephant while bathing the animal at a sanctuary in southern Thailand on Friday, according to local police.

Bathing elephants at animal sanctuaries is a popular activity for tourists in Thailand, which is home to both wild and domesticated populations.

Elephants, Thailand’s national animal, have seen their wild population decline in recent decades due to threats from tourism, logging, poaching and human encroachment on elephant habitats.

Experts estimate the wild elephant population in Thailand has dwindled to 3,000-4,000, a decline from more than 100,000 at the beginning of the 20th century.

Meanwhile, the number of captive elephants has increased 134% between 2010 and 2020, with estimates that around 2,800 elephants are being held across Thailand in tourism venues, according to the international non-profit World Animal Protection.

The charity has urged against the exploitation of elephants by the tourism industry and called for an end to captive breeding, voicing alarm for the conditions that many are kept in, including in isolation.

“Elephants are highly intelligent animals with the capacity for complex thoughts and emotions,” the charity said in a 2020 report. “Managing elephants is extremely high risk and highlights their unsuitability for captive environments, especially when in direct contact with people.”