The warning came hours before Donald Trump's inauguration for a second term as US president during which X owner Elon Musk is set to play an influential role.

Technologies tend to "give more power to the powerful and make the rich richer. This threat is especially serious" this week, Sanchez told a conference on artificial intelligence in Madrid.

"We are seeing how the tech caste... is trying to use its absolute power over social media to control public debate and therefore government action in the whole West."

Musk ruffled feathers in Europe after targeting UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as well as backing Germany's far-right AfD in next month's election.

The world's richest person has become a close Trump ally and harnessed X, formerly Twitter, to back the Republican's successful presidential campaign in November.

"Democracy is not one euro, one vote, it is not one tweet, one vote: it is one person, one vote," Sanchez said.

"Faced with this we have to fight back and we must put forward alternatives... Europe must stand up to this threat and defend democracy."

Outgoing President Joe Biden warned last week that US democracy was increasingly "fragile" against an "oligarchy" forming under Trump.

Sanchez lashed out at Musk's perceived interference in European politics earlier this month, saying the Tesla and SpaceX boss led an "international reactionary" movement that "stirs up hatred".

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