Most Americans— even Republicans— understand the importance of NATO to America's defense, even if Trump, like Putin, has been working to sabotage it. This Gallup poll indicates that 47% of Americans favor maintaining the current U.S. commitment to NATO, 20% support increasing it, while just 16% advocate for decreasing the commitment, and 12%— take the Trump-Putin perspective— withdrawing entirely. Similarly, a Pew Research Center survey reported that 58% of Americans hold a favorable view of NATO, with a clear partisan divide: 75% of Democrats view NATO favorably, compared to 43% of Republicans. Trump, Vance and Musk are working to undermine American support.
Yesterday Ros Krasny reported that Musk “threw his weight behind a US exit from NATO, saying on his social media platform that it ‘doesn’t make sense for America to pay for the defense of Europe.’” He wants to see the U.S. leave both NATO and th UN.
European Union leaders met in Brussels for an emergency summit last week with a view to massively increase defense spending.
The officials discussed a European Commission proposal that includes as much as €150 billion ($162.5 billion) in loans to member states for defense, as well as plans to allow countries to use their national budgets to potentially spend €650 billion on defense over four years without triggering budgetary penalties.
“In the last weeks, we’ve seen what I would call quite a turbulent development,” EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius said on Bloomberg TV on Friday. “It’s still not perhaps very clear what finally will be the American strategy.”
Under a 2023 law, a president can’t unilaterally withdraw from the alliance without a two-thirds supermajority in the Senate or an act of Congress.
Musk’s backing of a U.S. NATO exit— echoing Trump’s long-standing hostility toward the alliance— fits neatly into the billionaire-authoritarian playbook: weaken Western democratic alliances, destabilize global order, and embolden America’s adversaries, all under the guise of “common sense” economic nationalism. For Musk, this is likely driven by his alignment with authoritarian regimes (China, Russia and increasingly the far right in the U.S.), his resentment toward government oversight, and his obsession with shaping geopolitics to serve his business interests. Starlink’s entanglements with Ukraine and Russia show he sees himself as a power broker, not just a businessman. Musk's cheerleading for U.S. withdrawal from NATO is another step in his self-anointed role as an unelected geopolitical disruptor.
For Trump, NATO has always been a target— not because he cares about defense spending, but because he fundamentally aligns with autocrats like Putin, who benefit from a fractured West. His rhetoric about “not defending” allies who don’t “pay their bills” isn’t about fiscal responsibility; it’s about dismantling an institution that has kept Russia in check for decades. It’s the same transactional worldview he applies to everything: loyalty and protection are commodities, not obligations.
The timing of Musk’s comments is significant. With European nations scrambling to increase defense spending amid fears of a second Trump presidency, and with Ukraine’s survival dependent on continued U.S. aid, Musk and Trump are amplifying a message that serves only one real beneficiary: Vladimir Putin. A weakened NATO, or even just the perception that the U.S. might abandon it, undermines European stability, weakens deterrence against Russian aggression, and accelerates the very chaos that Trump (and Musk) thrive in.
This isn’t just about an ill-informed billionaire spouting off on social media. It’s part of a broader effort by the authoritarian right to dismantle the post-WWII international order, paving the way for an era where might makes right, alliances are transactional, and democratic values take a backseat to raw power. NATO isn’t perfect, but a world without it looks a lot like the one Putin and his allies want— and Trump and Musk are more than happy to help them get there.
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