The world's richest man Elon Musk on Wednesday threw his support behind France's far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen after she decided to run despite a fraud conviction.
"She is France's last hope," he tweeted to 240 million followers on his social media platform X, reposting a picture of her.
Musk had previously shown support for Le Pen but this appears to be the first time he does so with her officially back in the race to replace centrist President Emmanuel Macron in elections next year.
He has also endorsed Germany's far-right AfD party and Romanian far-right candidate Calin Georgescu.
France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot appeared to urge Musk to rethink his support.
"Like we say in French: only fools don't change their minds," he wrote.
Le Pen's anti-immigration National Rally (RN) party is eyeing what it views as its best chance yet to win the country's top job after 10 years under Macron.
She launched her fourth campaign for president earlier this month, just hours after an appeal court upheld her conviction for misappropriating European Parliament funds.
She was sentenced on appeal to a 15-month ban from office -- already served -- and a one-year term to be served under electronic monitoring, but chose to buy time by challenging her conviction before France's highest court.
Musk last year reposted a statement in which US President Donald Trump alleging the embezzlement case against Le Pen was a "witch hunt", comments Paris slammed as "interference".
"Free Le Pen!" Musk wrote.
Musk last month became the planet's first trillionaire following a surge in SpaceX shares in its Wall Street trading debut. But his fortune has since dropped below 900 billion, according to Forbes.
