ROME, Nov 14, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Italian President Sergio Mattarella reprimanded Elon Musk on Wednesday for wading into a fraught debate over Rome's migrant policy, urging the US billionaire to refrain from "giving lessons".

"Italy is a great democratic country... that knows how to look after itself while respecting its Constitution," said Mattarella, a highly respected moral authority in Italy, despite his role being essentially ceremonial.

Musk -- who played a major role in the re-election of Donald Trump as US president -- commented Tuesday on a ruling by Italian judges that dealt a blow to Rome's controversial deal with Albania over processing migrants.

"These judges need to go," the world's richest man wrote on the X social network that he owns.

Mattarella did not explicitly name Musk, but said that "anyone -- especially if they are preparing, as announced, to occupy an important role in the government of a friendly and allied country -- must respect (that country's) sovereignty and cannot make it his business to give lessons".

Musk has been appointed by Trump to co-head a new "Department of Government Efficiency" tasked with trimming down Washington bureaucracy.

Musk has close ties with far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, head of an anti-immigrant party.

Mattarella's statement came as Musk made another comment on X Wednesday, slamming the judges' ruling as "unacceptable" and asking if "the people of Italy live in a democracy or does an unelected autocracy make the decisions?"

Musk later spoke to Meloni, telling her of his "respect" for Mattarella, according to a statement issued by a spokesman for the billionaire to Italian news agency ANSA.

"Nevertheless, he stresses that freedom of speech is protected by the first amendment to the Italian Constitution," it read.

Italy signed a deal with Albania a year ago, under which asylum seekers picked up by Italian authorities in the Mediterranean and judged to be from so-called "safe" countries, would be processed in the non-EU country -- but the scheme has met legal challenges.