US election done, Musk jumps into Meloni's Italy on immigration

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump, turned his attention to Italian politics on Wednesday. Musk slammed a decision by judges in Rome to block Italy’s policy of deporting illegal immigrants and sending them to new detention centres in Albania, Southeastern Europe. Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will be heading DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) for an overhaul of American bureaucracy.

With the election in the US, where immigration was a hot-button issue, done, Musk criticised Italian judges for going against Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's move to deport illegal immigrants.

Meloni planned to detain up to 30,000 migrants in Albanian facilities.

Musk responded to the ruling on his platform, X, questioning whether Italy was governed by democracy or "unelected autocracy" and calling the decision "unacceptable". The ruling challenges Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s policy aimed at processing migrants outside Italy’s borders.

“Do the people of Italy live in a democracy or does an unelected autocracy make the decisions?” Musk wrote on X.

Musk's comments come after a decision by Italian immigration judges that seven immigrants held in Albania be brought back to Italy.

The Rome tribunal’s decision marks the second setback for Meloni’s administration regarding its Albania-based migrant detention centres, according to The Guardian.

This comes amid a growing debate over the alignment of national policies with European Union law.

The immigration unit of the Rome court sent the case to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), suspending detention of the migrants until the ECJ determines whether EU law takes precedence over Italian policy regarding a migrant's country of origin.

Meloni, who struck an agreement with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama in 2023, had planned to detain up to 30,000 migrants in Albanian facilities while their asylum applications were processed.

However, recent court rulings have questioned this approach, arguing that EU law does not permit categorical declarations of countries as "safe" without guaranteeing safety for all groups within each nation.

On September 24, rumours spread that Elon Musk and Giorgia Meloni were dating. A post shared online asked, "Do you think they'll date?" and showed Elon Musk and Giorgia Meloni seated together at a table during an event. However, Musk denied the claim, saying, "We are not dating."

JUDICIARY ENDANGERING ITALIANS, SAYS ITALY DEPUTY PM

Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini responded with frustration, accusing the judiciary of "endangering the safety and wallets of Italians".

The matter also drew the attention of American billionaire Elon Musk, who supports both Meloni and US President-elect Donald Trump.

“These judges need to go,” Musk commented on X, in response to a post about the judges' decision. Salvini replied, “Elon Musk is right.”

The recent case involved seven migrants from Egypt and Bangladesh rescued by the Italian coast guard and taken to Albania.

This group is the latest to be returned to Italy after a similar October ruling brought 16 vulnerable migrants back to Italian soil.

Under Italian policy, Egypt and Bangladesh are deemed safe for repatriation, yet European Union (EU) law requires assurances that all regions and groups within these countries are safe.