French business leaders are more concerned about tax on ultra-rich than about Trump #FrenchFinance

“Genius” or “asshole”? On February 11, on the French TV show “Quotidien,” four young tech entrepreneurs were asked what they thought of Elon Musk, the creator of Tesla and SpaceX, new right-hand man to US President Donald Trump, and supporter of the far right in Germany and the UK. The day before, on another TV channel, France 2, Xavier Niel, the boss of Iliad (and individual shareholder in the Le Monde Group), said that the “world’s greatest entrepreneur” was “maybe sometimes an asshole.” But that evening, on “Quotidien,” the tech guys were careful not to lash this “divisive” figure.

It’s no doubt difficult for start-ups financed mainly by American funds to criticize the Californian tech icon. But the moment disgusted Benoît Hamon, a former French minister and Socialist candidate in the 2017 presidential election, now director general of the migrant support NGO Singa Global. “When it comes to talking about Musk and his racist offensive, we note that our entrepreneurs hardly disrupt. They applaud, bow their heads or look the other way,” he reacted, in a virulent message – denouncing the fact that, in the minds of some, having once been a coding genius might be enough to receive the “cool Nazi” award – published on Sunday, March 2 on LinkedIn, then deleted without his knowledge by the site’s administrators.

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