Expert Forum’s Official Position on Elon Musk’s Intimidation Campaign

Expert Forum (EFOR) and our fellow civil society organizations are facing an unprecedented attack from powerful figures like Elon Musk. We believe this is an increasingly dangerous attempt at intimidation, deliberately singling out Expert Forum (EFOR) and other Romanian NGOs in this context. Such actions aim to discredit and weaken civil society’s role in defending democracy and holding powerful entities accountable.

In a public post, Musk falsely claimed that “The NGOs are trying to destroy democracy!”, amplifying a misleading post by pro-Georgescu influencer Mario Nawfal, in what appears to be a deliberate attempt to manipulate public opinion and undermine efforts to protect democracy in Romania.

This disinformation campaign is based on an intentional distortion of an official meeting – Stakeholder Roundtable – DSA in Electoral Context, which took place on March 3, 2025, in Bucharest, and was attended by:

• Representatives of NGOs and academia
• Major digital platforms, including Meta, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter)
• National and European authorities (ANCOM, the National Audiovisual Council, the Permanent Electoral Authority, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the European Commission, etc.)

The real purpose of this meeting was to discuss the measures that digital platforms must take to comply with legal obligations regarding illegal content during elections. Topics covered included:

• Coordinated inauthentic behavior, hate speech, anti-Semitic content, and electoral interference.
• Transparency and labeling of paid political content.
• Mechanisms for reporting illegal content and the responsibility of platforms in preventing the amplification and abuse of their services through such content.

This was a technical discussion on compliance measures, not a meeting for ‘NGO-led online censorship,’ as falsely claimed by Musk and other disinformation propagators. Moreover, X had its own representatives at the meeting, which means that Elon Musk is either ignoring reality or deliberately attacking his own company to fuel false narratives.

We publicly call on Elon Musk to get informed and consult his own company’s representatives who were present at the event before spreading toxic lies. The real threat to democracy is not NGOs holding major platforms accountable, but the use of influence and disinformation to intimidate and discredit citizens who are fighting against attacks on Romania’s democracy.

Expert Forum has a proven track record of fighting government corruption, clientelism, and the misuse of public subsidies by political parties. We will continue to stand for transparency, good governance, and fair elections, regardless of the pressures we face.

We stand firm: We will not yield to these intimidation attempts!

Signed,
The Expert Forum Team