By Arturo Varvelli

Last week, Elon Musk got a slap on the wrist from Italian president Sergio Mattarella, after he backed Italian prime minister Georgia Meloni’s policy of detaining foreign migrants in Albania. Musk had said certain Italian judges “need[ed] to go” because they questioned the legality of the detainment policy. The US-based entrepreneur’s support for Meloni has been growing since he attended her annual party in Rome last year. In September, Musk awarded Meloni with the Atlantic Council’s Global Citizen award in New York, reaffirming their mutual esteem.

In turn, Musk has become a cultural reference point for the Italian right, particularly under Meloni’s leadership. For years, Italian conservatives have struggled to find intellectual and cultural touchstones to match the influence of left-wing thinkers and movements. Musk provides them with a figure who embodies a new kind of “cultural futurism”. His embrace of technology, space exploration, and unfettered free speech offers the Italian right an intellectual sheen they have long sought.

In some ways, Musk echoes Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the early 20th-century Italian poet and founder of the Futurist social movement. Both figures managed to capture the imagination of their respective eras with bold visions of technological progress and societal disruption. Marinetti’s Futurism was a rallying cry for speed, innovation, and a break with the past – ideals that aligned........

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