ROME (AP) — Italian President Sergio Mattarella sharply rebuked Elon Musk on Wednesday for speaking out about Italian court rulings that have hampered the government’s plans to process some asylum seekers in Albania.
Musk, who is expected to take on a top advisory role in Donald Trump’s new administration, wrote on X on Tuesday that “these judges need to go.” He was referring to the Italian court’s latest ruling against right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s immigration deal with Albania.
In a subsequent post on Wednesday, Musk wrote: “This is unacceptable. Do the Italian people live in a democracy or does an unelected autocracy make the decisions?”
The tweets were about a court in Rome’s refusal to rule on a formal request to detain seven migrants who had been rescued at sea and taken to Albania for processing.
Monday’s ruling, which resulted in the men being taken to Italy for treatment, was the second legal setback for Meloni’s much-hyped plan to outsource the treatment of some male asylum seekers to Albania.
Mattarella did not mention Musk by name, but made it clear in an unusually irritated statement on Wednesday that he was talking about him. The Italian head of state demanded respect for Italian sovereignty, especially from other future officials.
“Italy is a great democratic country and knows how to take care of itself while respecting the constitution,” Mattarella said in a statement released by his spokesman.
“Everyone, especially if, as announced, he is about to assume an important role as a government in a friendly and allied country, must respect his sovereignty and cannot ascribe to himself the task of handing out regulations,” said the declaration.
Trump announced Tuesday that Musk, one of the most influential people around the president-elect, would help lead a Department of Government Efficiency, essentially an independent advisory panel to eliminate waste and fraud.
Musk is a supporter of Meloni and has met her a few times in Rome and in September accompanied her at an awards ceremony on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Photos of them together made so much news that Musk apparently felt the need to quell speculation, tweeting: “We are not dating.”
The court rulings have angered Meloni’s far-right government, which is seeking strategies to ease pressure on Italy due to the arrival of migrants seeking a better life in Europe. The government had seen the opening of the Albanian centers as a central part of its immigration policy, including as a deterrent, and said they could be a model for Europe.
In both cases, Italian courts have referred the cases to the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg to decide whether the migrants’ countries of origin are considered safe countries for repatriation. There is no word on when the European Court will rule.
But as a result of the court rulings in Rome, not a single migrant has yet been processed in the Albanian centers, which will cost Italy 670 million euros ($730 million) over five years to build and operate.
Italy’s opposition says the money would be much better spent on strengthening Italian-operated migrant processing centers, while human rights groups say outsourcing asylum processing violates international law.
The centers opened in October after a months-long delay because crumbling ground in one center needed repairs. They are led by Italy and fall under Italian jurisdiction, while Albanian guards provide external security.
