Elon Musk says Marine Le Pen is France's last hope after she resumes campaign

Elon Musk expressed support on Wednesday for France's far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen after she decided to run despite a fraud conviction.

Musk reposted a picture of Le Pen on his social media platform X and wrote that she was "France's last hope." The source says Musk has 240 million followers on X.

Musk had previously shown support for Le Pen, but the source says this appears to be the first time he has done so with her officially back in the race to replace centrist President Emmanuel Macron in elections next year. Musk 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, writing: "Like we say in French: only fools don't change their minds."

Le Pen's anti-immigration National Rally party sees the election as what it considers its best chance yet to win France's presidency after 10 years under Macron. She launched her fourth presidential campaign earlier this month, just hours after an appeal court upheld her conviction for misappropriating European Parliament funds.

On appeal, Le Pen was sentenced to a 15-month ban from office, which the source says she had already served, and a one-year term to be served under electronic monitoring. She is challenging her conviction before France's highest court.

Musk last year reposted a statement in which US President Donald Trump alleged that the embezzlement case against Le Pen was a "witch hunt." Paris criticised those comments as interference. Musk also wrote: "Free Le Pen!"

The source describes Musk as the world's richest man. It says he became the planet's first trillionaire last month after a rise in SpaceX shares in their Wall Street trading debut, but that his fortune has since fallen below $900 billion, according to Forbes.