French President Emmanuel Macron recently said that the US tech billionaire Elon Musk is “over-subsidised”. Speaking at an industrial summit in the Belgian city of Antwerp, Macron cited Musk’s Starlink as an argument for public investment in European industry. “Everybody is fascinated by Starlink. I’m super happy,” he said adding “But if you are lucid, Mr. Musk is probably one of the guys in the world who has had in his pockets the most billions of dollars from American taxpayers”.“Elon Musk is first an oversubsidised guy by the federal agency in the US,” Macron said, calling the approach “super-innovative”.

Elon Musk replies to French President

Upset and angry by French President Emmanuel Macron’s comments, Elon Musk rejected his claims, writing on X: “Actually, that’s our competitors, especially in Europe”. Musk did not stop here. Pushing back further, the tech billionaire wrote in another post:“If you add up all the government funding Tesla and SpaceX have ever received, it is only about 1% of the combined value of the companies. In contrast, if you do that with US and European major aerospace companies, the government money they have received *exceeds* 100% of their value!”

When French President accused Elon Musk of political intervention

Notably, this is not the first time Emmanuel Macron has criticised Elon Musk. In January 2025, the French President accused the world’s richest man of intervening directly in the continent’s democratic processes. “Ten years ago, who would have imagined that the owner of one of the world’s largest social networks would be supporting a new international reactionary movement and intervening directly in elections, including in Germany,” Macron then wrote in a post on X.