Italy's president sharply rebukes Elon Musk over comments on X about migration court rulings

ROME (AP) — Italian President Sergio Mattarella sharply rebuked Elon Musk on Wednesday for weighing in on Italian court rulings that have stymied the government’s plans to process some asylum seekers in Albania.

Musk, who is expected to have a top advisory role in Donald Trump’s new administration, wrote Tuesday on X that “these judges need to go.” He was referring to the latest Italian court ruling against right-wing Premier Giorgia Meloni’s Albania immigration deal.

In a subsequent post on Wednesday, Musk wrote: “This is unacceptable. Do the people of Italy live in a democracy or does an unelected autocracy make the decisions?”

The tweets concerned a Rome court's refusal to rule on a formal request to detain seven migrants rescued at sea and transferred to Albania for processing.

Monday's ruling, which resulted in the men being brought to Italy for processing, was the second judicial setback for Meloni’s much-touted plan to outsource to Albania the processing of some male asylum-seekers.

Mattarella didn’t cite Musk by name but — in an unusually piqued statement — made clear on Wednesday that he was referring to him. Italy's head of state demanded respect for Italy’s sovereignty, especially from other soon-to-be public officials.

“Italy is a great democratic country and … knows how to take care of itself while respecting its Constitution,” Mattarella said in a statement issued by his spokesman.

“Anyone, particularly if as announced is about to assume an important role of government in a friendly and allied country, must respect its sovereignty and cannot attribute to himself the task of imparting prescriptions,” the statement said.

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 with her in Rome on a few occasions and in September joined her at an awards ceremony on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. Photos of them together made such news that Musk seemingly felt the need to tamp down speculation by tweeting “We are not dating.”

The courts’ rulings have raised the ire of Meloni’s far-right-led government, which has been seeking strategies to ease the strain on Italy of the arrival of migrants seeking a better life in Europe. The government had held up the opening of the Albanian centers as a centerpiece of its immigration crackdown, also as a means of deterrence, and said they could be a model for Europe.

In both cases, Italian courts referred the cases to the EU court of justice in Luxembourg to rule if the countries of origin for the migrants are considered safe countries for repatriation. There is no word on when the European court might rule.

But as a result of the Rome court decisions, no migrant has yet been processed in the Albanian centers, which are budgeted to cost Italy 670 million euros ($730 million) over five years to build and operate.

The Italian opposition says the money could be much better spent on reinforcing Italian-operated migrant processing centers, while human rights groups say the outsourcing of aslyum processing contravenes international law.

The centers opened in October after a months-long delay because crumbling soil at one center needed to be repaired. They are run by Italy and are under Italian jurisdiction, while Albanian guards provide external security.