At the WELT Economic Summit in January 2025, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk criticized what he described as a growing trend in the media and politics to label moderate policies as “far-right.”
Musk argued that issues such as “sensible immigration policy” were once mainstream positions, often championed by politicians from the center-left, but are now being cast as extremist. “If you took speeches from Obama or Hillary Clinton 10 to 15 years ago, they sound identical to President Trump on immigration,” Musk said.
He contended that the definition of political spectrums has been distorted. According to Musk, true “far-right” should apply to regimes bent on “wars or genocides,” not to policies that were regarded as centrist in recent memory.
“What we’ve seen is really a drift left, where governments that are actually far-left think they are centrist,” Musk remarked, describing the shift as “an inaccurate redefinition” that serves as propaganda.
The Tesla and SpaceX chief warned that branding common-sense policies as far-right risks fueling polarization by attaching a negative connotation to positions once widely accepted.
