Sen. John Kennedy, 73, clarifies why he froze up on live TV
The one-liner whiz fired back at lefty critics for speculating he suffered a medical scare after what looked like troubling footage of the 73-year-old growing stonefaced went viral on social media.
'Yesterday I was on your show. I enjoyed it. I was just yapping away, and all of a sudden, my earpiece blew up. This one — it sounded like a 747 was taking off,' Kennedy told host Larry Kudlow on Wednesday, motioning to his earpiece.
'Man, my ears are still ringing. Anyway, so I just, assumed we were off air. I just stopped talking, and I didn't start talking again until I could hear you.'
A day prior, Kennedy had been discussing the Trump administration's crackdown on sanctuary cities, when suddenly he trailed off mid-sentence before staring blankly off to the side.
4 Sen. John Kennedy wants the world to know that he didn't get an STD live on TV.
FOX
4 The Louisiana Republican is famous for his snappy one-liners.
REUTERS
'Jesus loves them, but everybody else thinks …' the Louisiana senator riffed before mumbling quietly.
'Everybody else thinks,' he repeated, then turned blankly with his mouth agape.
Kudlow then interjected at the time after several seconds of Kennedy looking blankly into the camera and cut him off, claiming there were 'technical problems.'
'That was the same mic we lost with Sen. Rand Paul,' Kudlow added. Paul (R-Ky.) had done an interview on his program before Kennedy and, at one point, complained mid-interview about losing his connection to the program.
The Louisiana Republican later returned to the air Tuesday, about half a minute after the incident and was still mired by technical issues and trouble hearing Kudlow.
Kudlow seemed to corroborate Kennedy's claim that there was a technical issue, stressing 'I think that's all that happened' and 'a lot of people are making conclusions about your health that they had no business making.'
4 Sen. John Kennedy ripped into coverage of what appeared to be a freeze-up of his live on television.
AP
'I don't know, some of the rags up here have they've got all kind of stories that I had a brain freeze live on TV or a stroke or caught an STD live on television or something?' Kennedy quipped about the media speculation after the incident.
'I'm OK, I'm here. I'm back here today. I'm full of piss and vinegar.'
When questioned about the incident, Kennedy's office sent a statement to The Post from the senator explaining 'there was a malfunction in my earpiece.
'I heard a loud screeching noise with a lot of static.'
Before the clarification, speculation quickly swirled about Kennedy, and some observers drew comparisons to Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) repeated freeze-ups in the public eye.
4 Sen. Mitch McConnell had frozen up several times during the end of his time as Senate GOP leader.
AP
McConnell's team later chalked up the health scares to a concussion he suffered from a fall in March 2023. The former leader of the Senate GOP later announced that he would not be seeking reelection in 2026.
Concerns about the health and vitality of lawmakers have been elevated over recent months. This year alone, three House Democrats died from illnesses or old age.
Democrats in particular have been forced to reckon with former President Joe Biden's mental acuity amid a string of new revelations about the 82-year-old's condition.
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San Francisco Chronicle
10 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
North Carolina Senate race sets up as a fight over who would be a champion for the middle class
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Still, Cooper's opening message that he hears the worries of working families has given Democrats in North Carolina and beyond a sense that they can reclaim their place as the party that champions the middle class. They think it's a message that could help them pick up a Senate seat, and possibly more, in next year's midterm elections, which in recent years have typically favored the party out of power. 'I'm Roy Cooper. And I know that today, for too many Americans, the middle class feels like a distant dream,' the former governor said in a video announcing his candidacy. 'Meanwhile, the biggest corporations and the richest Americans have grabbed unimaginable wealth at your expense. It's time for that to change.' Cooper's plainspoken appeal may represent just the latest effort by Democrats to find their way back to power, but it has some thinking they've finally found their footing after last year's resounding losses. 'I think it would do us all a lot of good to take a close look at his example,' said Larry Grisolano, a Chicago-based Democratic media strategist and former adviser to President Barack Obama. Whatley, a former North Carolina GOP chairman and close Trump ally, used his Thursday announcement that he was entering the race to hail the president as the true champion of the middle class. He said Trump had already fulfilled promises to end taxes on tips and overtime and said Cooper was out of step with North Carolinians. 'Six months in, it's pretty clear to see, America is back,' Whatley said. 'A healthy, robust economy, safe kids and communities and a strong America. These are the North Carolina values that I will champion if elected.' 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Republican strategists familiar with the national Senate landscape have said privately that Cooper poses a formidable threat. The Senate Leadership Fund, a GOP super PAC affiliated with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, wasted no time in challenging Cooper's portrayal of a common-sense advocate for working people. 'Roy Cooper masquerades as a moderate,' the narrator in the 30-second spot says. 'But he's just another radical, D.C. liberal in disguise.' Cooper, a former state legislator who served four terms as attorney general before he became governor, has never held an office in Washington. Still, Whatley was quick to link Cooper to national progressive figures such as New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, former Vice President Kamala Harris and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Whatley accused Cooper of failing to address illegal immigration and of supporting liberal gender ideology. He echoed the themes raised in the Senate Leadership Fund ad, which noted Cooper's vetoes in the Republican-led legislature of measures popular with conservatives, such as banning gender-affirming health care for minors and requiring county sheriffs to cooperate with federal immigration officials. 'Roy Cooper may pretend to be different than the radical extremists,' Whatley said. 'But he is all-in on their agenda.' Cooper first won the governorship in 2016, while Trump was carrying the state in his first White House bid. Four years later, they both carried the state again. Cooper, who grew up in a small town 60 miles (96.6 kilometers) east of Raleigh, has long declined requests that he seek federal office. He 'understands rural North Carolina,' veteran North Carolina strategist Thomas Mills said. 'And while he's not going to win it, he knows how to talk to those folks.' As with most Democrats, Cooper's winning coalition includes the state's largest cities and suburbs. But he has long made enough inroads in other areas to win. 'He actually listens to what voters are trying to tell us, instead of us trying to explain to them how they should think and feel,' said state Sen. Michael Garrett, a Greensboro Democrat. In his video announcement, Cooper tried to turn the populist appeal Trump made to voters on checkbook issues against the party in power, casting himself as the Washington outsider. Senior Cooper strategist Morgan Jackson said the message represents a shift and will take work to drive home with voters. 'Part of the challenge Democrats had in 2024 is we were not addressing directly the issues people were concerned about today,' Jackson said. 'We have to acknowledge what people are going through right now and what they are feeling, that he hears you and understands what you feel.' Pat Dennis, president of American Bridge 21st Century, a group that conducts research for an initiative called the Working Class Project, said Cooper struck a tone that other Democrats should try to match. 'His focus on affordability and his outsider status really hits a lot of the notes these folks are interested in,' Dennis said. 'I do think it's a model, especially his focus on affordability.' 'We can attack Republicans all day long, but unless we have candidates who can really embody that message, we're not going to be able to take back power.'
San Francisco Chronicle
10 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Musk, a social media powerhouse, boosts fortunes of hard-right figures in Europe
ROME (AP) — Hard-right commentators, politicians and activists in Europe have uncovered a secret to expanding their influence: engaging with Elon Musk. Take the German politician from a party whose own domestic intelligence agency has designated as extremist. Her daily audience on X surged from 230,000 to 2.2 million on days Musk interacted with her posts. She went on to lead her party to its best-ever electoral showing. Or the anti-immigration activist in Britain, who was banned from Twitter and sentenced to 18 months in prison for contempt of court. Since Musk let him back on the platform in late 2023, he's mentioned, reposted or replied to the billionaire more than 120 times on X — and gained nearly a million followers. Even a little-known social-media influencer turned politician from Cyprus has benefited from the Musk effect. Before winning a surprise seat in the European Parliament, where he's advocated for Musk, the influencer seemed to have one ambition: to hug the world's richest man. He got his hug — and political endorsements. On days Musk has interacted with his account on X, the man's audience exploded from just over 300,000 to nearly 10 million views. Elon Musk may have tumbled from political grace in Washington -- he stepped down as an adviser to President Donald Trump in May and has since traded insults with the president -- but as he works to build his own political party, his power on X his power remains unchecked. Musk's influence on the platform he bought for $44 billion has made him a kingmaker at home and abroad. Among those he has chosen to cultivate are hard-right politicians and insurgent influencers across Europe, according to an Associated Press analysis of public data. His dominance, which has real-world financial and political impacts, is fueling concerns in Europe about foreign meddling -- not from Russia or China this time, but from the United States. 'Every alarm bell needs to ring,' said Christel Schaldemose, a vice president of the European Parliament who works on electoral interference and digital regulation. 'We need to make sure that power is not unbalanced.' In seeking to quantify Musk's effect on European politics, The Associated Press analyzed more than 20,000 posts over a three-year period from 11 far-right European figures across six countries who frequently promote a hard-right political or social agenda and had significant interactions with Elon Musk since he purchased Twitter. Tens of thousands of posts by Musk on Twitter, now known as X, were also collected. The AP used the records, obtained from data provider Bright Data, to analyze how Musk's account interacted with the European influencers, and vice versa, and the extent to which Musk's engagement boosted their reach. These case studies are not meant to be representative of a broad universe; rather, they showcase the ways in which Musk's engagement can have an impact on local influencers who share his views. Due to limitations on data collection, the dataset is not a complete record of all posts made by these accounts. Even so, it captured at least 920 instances in which one of the European accounts tagged, replied or otherwise attempted to interact with Musk's account, and at nearly 190 instances where Musk's own posts interacted with the Europeans. The AP also analyzed records of daily follower counts, using data from Social Blade, to measure any growth in the European accounts' audience that occurred in the wake of Musk's online interactions. This kind of analysis is no longer possible. In March, Social Blade removed X from its analytics, saying that X had increased its data access fees to prohibitive levels, making the platform harder to research. Among those included in AP's analysis are several people who have run into legal trouble in their own countries. An anti-immigrant agitator in the U.K., for example, was sentenced in October to 18 months in prison for violating a court order blocking him from making libelous allegations against a Syrian refugee. A German politician was convicted last year of knowingly using a Nazi slogan in a speech. An Italian vice premier was acquitted in December of illegally detaining 100 migrants aboard a humanitarian rescue ship. Others examined by AP were an influencer known as the 'shieldmaiden of the far-right;' a German activist dubbed the 'anti-Greta Thunberg' now living in what amounts to political exile in Washington, D.C.; and two politicians who have advocated for the interests of Musk's companies as those firms seek to expand in Europe. AP's analysis shows how Musk is helping unite nationalists across borders in common cause to halt migration, overturn progressive policies and promote an absolutist vision of free speech. While his efforts have sparked backlash in some countries, Musk's promotion of a growing alliance of hard-right parties and individuals has helped rattle the foundation of a transatlantic bond that has guided U.S. and European relations for over eight decades. Engagement from Musk does not guarantee a surge in followers or page views. But AP found it can have a huge impact, especially on up-and-coming influencers. One account that began with around 120,000 followers when Musk took over Twitter in October 2022 topped 1.2 million by January of this year. Seven other European accounts saw six-figure increases in their follower counts over the same period. Most of the 11 accounts examined saw triple-digit percentage increases in their followers. Even some that grew more steadily on their own before Musk interacted with them saw their follower counts rise sharply after he began engaging with their posts. Similarly, on days Musk interacted with a post, its account saw its views soar — in most cases, accruing two to four times as many views, with a few seeing boosts 30 or 40 times their normal daily viewership. Musk is not the only factor influencing the growth of these accounts, of course, but their rising fortunes are a measure of how the platform has evolved under his leadership. When Musk acquired X, he pledged to turn it into a haven for free speech, declaring himself a 'free speech absolutist.' AP's analysis adds to growing evidence that instead of serving as a neutral forum for free speech, X amplifies Musk's speech. This shift has given him sweeping power to direct people's attention. 'There's an extreme asymmetry in the way Musk is able to leverage and shape the platform,' said Timothy Graham, an associate professor in digital media at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, who has studied data anomalies on X. 'There's an unequivocal sense when you go onto the site that you're entering Musk's kingdom.' Musk's megaphone: Bigger than Trump and Taylor Swift Since he acquired Twitter in 2022, Musk has come to dominate the platform. His followers have more than doubled, to more than 220 million — growth so tremendous that it easily outpaced the other Top 10 accounts. Not even Taylor Swift has been able to keep up. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose followers grew by 21 million — or 25% — from October 2022 through January, clocked a distant second. Donald Trump's followers grew by 14%, or around 12 million, while Taylor Swift mustered a mere 3% growth, or 3 million new followers. None of the other Top 10 accounts have shown such consistent follower growth, month after month, AP found. The result is a further concentration of power for the world's richest man, who now commands the most popular account on a social media platform used by hundreds of millions of people around the world. Given the opacity of the algorithms that power X, it's hard to determine with certainty what array of factors might be driving such unusual — and unusually consistent — growth in Musk's account. But researchers who have analyzed data patterns on X argue that the platform's algorithm has, at times, been altered to amplify Musk's voice. How X promotes content is a growing point of contention in Europe. In January, the European Union expanded its investigation of X to assess how the platform pushes content to users and why some material goes viral. In February, French prosecutors opened a separate investigation into X over allegations that Musk changed the platform's algorithms to promote biased content. Musk's public attacks on left-leaning politicians, support for hard-right policies and loose handling of facts have prompted rebukes from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Italian President Sergio Mattarella, and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre. X did not respond to requests for comment. Musk is X's kingmaker Musk's dominance creates a strong incentive for people seeking to increase their clout — or their revenues, through the platform's monetization options — to exploit these network effects and try to get Musk to engage with their content. 'People know that he's gearing everything towards him,' said Graham, the digital media scholar in Australia. 'They're doing everything they can to get close to this person because he is the moneymaker.' Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, for example, has benefited from the Musk effect. AfD coleader Alice Weidel helped lead the party, which advocates for nationalist and anti-immigrant policies, to second place in German parliamentary elections in February. When Musk interacted with her account in the run-up to those elections, the average number of daily views she got rose from about 230,000 to 2.2 million. Germany's domestic intelligence agency in May classified Weidel's party as a right-wing extremist organization, which would subject the AfD to greater surveillance. The party, which maintains that it's a victim of politically motivated defamation, promptly filed a lawsuit against the move, which Musk, along with top U.S. officials blasted as an attack on free speech. The designation has been suspended pending judicial review. The AfD denies any association with Germany's Nazi past — though, in a chat with Musk livestreamed on X in January, Weidel falsely described Hitler as a 'communist, socialist guy.' The chat has gotten 16 million views. Musk also appeared at AfD rallies and endorsed the party in a German newspaper. AfD officials did not respond to requests for comment. Naomi Seibt, a German climate skeptic, pinged Musk nearly 600 times between October 2022 and Jan. 2025. Musk finally engaged in June 2024, when he asked her to explain why the AfD is so controversial in Germany. Since then, Musk has replied to, quoted or tagged Seibt more than 50 times, and her followers have grown by more than 320,000 since Musk took over the platform. On days Musk interacted with Seibt, her posts, on average, got 2.6 times as many views. 'I didn't intentionally 'invade' Elon's algorithm,' Seibt told AP. 'Obviously Elon has a lot of influence and can help share a message even with those who are usually glued to the legacy media, particularly in Germany.' Seibt said she's now living in the United States because she fears political persecution in Europe. 'Washington DC is the political heart of America and thus also the safest place for me to be,' she said. 'I fear the German state wants me locked up.' Musk has also boosted the influence of political insurgents in the U.K. Days before British national elections last July, Musk took to X to ask Nigel Farage, the leader of the populist Reform U.K. party: 'Why does the media keep calling you far-right? What are your policies?' Farage replied eagerly: 'Because we believe in family, country and strong borders. Call me!' In Spain, Rubén Pulido, a columnist for a newspaper published by the populist Vox party's think tank, hit the jackpot in August, when Musk responded to two posts in which he argued that rescue boats operated by nongovernmental organizations effectively help smugglers move migrants to Europe. Pulido's visibility soared. On days Musk engaged with him, his account got nearly 300,000 views — roughly three times more than usual. When Musk didn't interact with Pulido's account, the results were just as clear. In January, he again inveighed against migrant rescues and sought to get Musk's attention. 'Hi @elonmusk! Speak up,' he urged. Three weeks later, he tweeted: 'Perhaps @elonmusk might find this interesting.' That post garnered just 5,128 views. Pulido did not respond to requests for comment. While Musk helped boost the accounts of such fringe parties and rising influencers, his interactions did not provide as stark a benefit to more established politicians, AP found. That was true for both Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose ruling Brothers of Italy party has neo-fascist roots, and Dutch politician Geert Wilders, an anti-Islamic firebrand who has been called the Dutch Donald Trump. What happens on X doesn't always stay on X Musk's interactions online have spilled into political endorsements, policy advocacy -- and money. X helps users monetize their accounts, through ad revenue sharing and paid subscription programs as well as direct fundraising links. That means a surge in attention on X can bring a surge in revenue. Tommy Robinson, a British anti-immigration agitator who was released from prison in May, after serving a reduced sentence of seven months for contempt of court, has a link to his fundraising page on his X profile. Interactions from Musk more than doubled Robinson's daily views, from around 380,000 to nearly 850,000. Robinson — whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon — could not be reached for comment Radio Genoa, an account reportedly investigated by Italian authorities last year for allegedly spreading hate speech about migrants, used X to publicize a call for a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for legal defense. Radio Genoa has pinged Musk dozens of times over the last three years, and for good reason: On days Musk engaged with him, the views on his account doubled. Radio Genoa's followers surged from less than 200,000 before Musk's engagement to over 1.2 million. Radio Genoa could not be reached for comment. Eva Vlaardingerbroek -- a conservative Dutch political commentator dubbed the 'shieldmaiden of the far-right' whose account Musk has engaged with three dozen times -- uses X to solicit tips and has creator status, which allows her to charge subscription fees. So does Seibt, the German activist -- though she told AP her earnings from X aren't enough to sustain herself. Vlaardingerbroek did not respond to requests for comment. Musk has also advocated for Matteo Salvini, vice premier of Italy and the leader of the hard-right, anti-migrant League party. On X, Musk's interactions boosted Salvini's daily visibility more than fourfold. Offline, Salvini has urged Italy to move ahead with controversial contracts for Starlink and pushed back against EU efforts to regulate content on X. Before Fidias Panayiotou — a 25-year-old social media influencer from Cyprus with no political experience — won a surprise seat as an independent in the European Parliament last year, he spent weeks camped outside Twitter and Space X headquarters in a highly publicized quest to hug the world's richest man. In January 2023, his wish came true. Their embrace went viral. Soon, Musk was interacting with Panayiotou's posts on a variety of subjects, expanding his typical audience on X by more than 3,000%. Since taking his seat, Panayiotou -- whose positions often also reflect the views of Cyprus' traditional leftist establishment -- has praised X on the floor of the European Parliament, pushed back against regulations that impact the platform, and credited Musk with sparking his call to fire 80% of EU bureaucrats. Musk, evidently, was pleased. 'Vote for Fidias,' he posted on X, an endorsement that was viewed more than 11.5 million times. 'He is smart, super high energy and genuinely cares about you!' In July, after AP asked for comment, Panayiotou posted a video to dispel any impression that he was Musk's puppet. 'I don't have any relationship with Elon Musk,' he said. 'We haven't spoken at all since we hugged, neither through messages, nor by phone, and I've never invited him anywhere.' He said that Musk, unprompted, began reposting his content after he was elected to the European Parliament. 'I don't think it's a danger to democracy honestly that Elon Musk supports me,' Panayiotou explained in another video. 'I think this is the beauty of democracy.' —-
San Francisco Chronicle
10 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Key things to know about how Elon Musk has boosted hard-right figures in Europe
ROME (AP) — Elon Musk may have tumbled from political grace in Washington, D.C., but as he seeks to build a new political party, his power on X — where he commands the most popular account — remains unchecked. Musk is a kingmaker on the platform he acquired in 2022 for $44 billion. He has used his influence to cultivate hard-right politicians and insurgent activists across Europe. A retweet or reply from Musk can lead to millions of views and tens of thousands of new followers, according to an Associated Press analysis of public data. That fact has not been lost on influencers who have tagged Musk persistently, seeking a reply or a retweet. It has also fueled concerns in Europe about foreign meddling -- not from Russia or China, but from the United States. 'Every alarm bell needs to ring,' Christel Schaldemose, a vice president of the European Parliament who works on electoral interference and digital regulation, told AP. The Associated Press analyzed more than 20,000 posts, which were compiled by Bright Data, over a three-year period from a sample of 11 European figures who had significant interactions with Musk and frequently promote a hard-right political or social agenda. These case studies are not meant to be representative of a broad universe; rather they showcase the ways in which Musk's engagement can have an impact on local influencers that share his views. Since acquiring Twitter in October 2022, Elon Musk's followers have more than doubled, to over 220 million. No other large account has shown such high or consistent growth. The result: If Musk's X account is his megaphone, it has gotten a lot bigger since he took over -- a change that has global implications. The accounts Musk has been promoting are part of a growing global alliance of nationalistic parties and individuals united in common cause to halt migration, overturn progressive policies and promote an absolutist vision of free speech, which has rattled the foundation of a trans-Atlantic bond that guided U.S. and European relations for over eight decades. Several of the accounts AP analyzed belong to people who have faced allegations of illegal behavior in their own countries. Tommy Robinson, an anti-immigrant agitator in the U.K., was sentenced in October to 18 months in prison for violating a court order blocking him from making libelous allegations against a Syrian refugee. Bjoern Hoecke, a politician from Germany's Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party, was convicted last year of knowingly using a Nazi slogan in a speech. Italian vice premier Matteo Salvini was acquitted in December of allegations he illegally detained 100 migrants aboard a humanitarian rescue ship Among the others examined by AP: Alice Weidel, who helped lead Germany's Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party to its best electoral showing this year; Eva Vlaardingerbroek, a Dutch influencer known as the 'shieldmaiden of the far-right'; Naomi Seibt, a German activist dubbed the 'anti-Greta Thunberg' now living in what amounts to political exile in Washington DC; Rubén Pulido and Foro Madrid, both associated with Spain's populist Vox party; and Fidias Panayioutou, a politician from Cyprus who has also advocated for Musk's companies. These accounts collectively gained roughly 5 million followers from the time Musk took over Twitter in October 2022 through January of this year. Most saw triple-digit percentage increases in their followers -- as high as 920%, or in one case of a tiny account exploding over that time, topping 6,000%. Even some accounts that grew more steadily on their own saw their follower counts sharply begin rising once Musk started interacting with them. Similarly, on days Musk interacted with a post, the number of views the account got soared — in most cases, accruing two to four times as many views, with a few seeing boosts 30 or 40 times their normal daily viewership. More established players in Musk's orbit -- like Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose ruling Brothers of Italy party has neo-fascist roots — benefit less when Musk interacts with them on X, AP found. Attention seekers know that getting Musk to engage can be transformative Musk's dominance creates a strong incentive for people to get Musk to engage with their content. Naomi Seibt, a German climate skeptic, pinged Musk nearly 600 times over the past three years. Musk finally engaged in June 2024, when he asked her to explain why the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is so controversial in Germany. Since then, Musk has replied to, quoted or tagged Seibt more than 50 times, and her followers have grown by more than 320,000 since Musk took over the platform. On days Musk interacted with Seibt, her posts, on average, got 2.6 times as many views. 'I didn't intentionally 'invade' Elon's algorithm,' Seibt told AP. 'Obviously Elon has a lot of influence and can help share a message even with those who are usually glued to the legacy media, particularly in Germany.' Musk's online influence has real-world political and financial impact Alice Weidel, who helps lead the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, saw her daily audience surge from 230,000 to 2.2 million on days Musk interacted with her posts on X. After Musk hosted a livestream with Weidel on X, vice president JD Vance broke protocol and met her in Munich. Weidel's party, which is fighting a lawsuit to block the German government's decision to designate it as an extremist group, went on to secure its best electoral showing ever. Musk has also used X to advocate for the leader of Italy's hard-right League party, Matteo Salvini. On days Musk interacted with Salvini's account, average views were more than four times higher than usual. Now serving as vice premier, Salvini has urged his government to move ahead with controversial contracts for Starlink and pushed back against European efforts to regulate content on X. And Musk has a friend in Brussels: Fidias Panayiotou — a 25-year-old social media influencer from Cyprus. Before winning a surprise seat in the European Parliament last year, the Cypriot spent weeks on a quest to get Elon Musk to hug him. In January 2023, his wish came true. Their embrace went viral. Since taking office, Panayiotou has praised X on the floor of the European Parliament, pushed back against regulations that impact the platform, and credited Musk with sparking his call to fire 80% of EU bureaucrats. Musk, evidently, was pleased. 'Vote for Fidias,' he wrote on X. 'He is smart, super high energy and genuinely cares about you!' —- —-
