By Christopher F. Schuetze
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a close adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, shocked many in Germany this month by endorsing its far-right Alternative for Germany party, which is under surveillance by domestic intelligence for being extremist.
This past week, Musk entangled himself even more in the country’s snap election, explaining in a newspaper opinion essay why he believes the far-right party is the “last spark of hope” for Germany.
“The traditional parties have failed in Germany,” Musk wrote in comments published online by the daily Welt on Saturday. “Their policies have led to economic stagnation, social unrest and the erosion of national identity.”
Musk’s opinion piece comes as Germany girds itself for an intense winter election after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition collapsed in November. On Friday, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier officially announced the disbandment of parliament and set Feb. 23 as the date for new elections.
With four mainstream and three extremist parties on the left and right vying for seats in parliament and government participation, polls are favoring the conservative Christian Democratic Union. However, the AfD, with its anti-immigrant platform, is polling in second place, with roughly 20%.
Musk’s commentary was printed in the Sunday edition of the Welt, a conservative daily owned by the Axel Springer media group, which also owns Politico in the United States. Many of the paper’s journalists protested the printing of the commentary, according to reports. Eva Marie Kogel, who had been the paper’s head of opinion, resigned from her post after the printing, she confirmed on the social platform X.
In an apparent acknowledgment that Musk’s thoughts on the AfD could be controversial, the paper printed a response by Jan Philipp Burgard, editor-in-chief-designate on the same page.
“Musk’s diagnosis is correct, but his therapeutic approach, that only the AfD can save Germany, is fatally flawed,” he wrote.
Musk, who was heavily involved in supporting Trump in the U.S. presidential campaign, has been known to meddle in foreign political campaigns as well. He has engaged and supported right-wing causes both in Italy and the United Kingdom in recent months.
The provocative potential in Germany from Musk’s support of the AfD partly reflects the party’s political stance, considered so far right as to be anti-democratic. All other political parties in Germany have precluded working with the AfD.
When news broke that members of the AfD took part in a meeting with an Austrian extreme-right personality, who has called for deporting migrants en masse, tens of thousands of Germans took to the streets in protest this year. Last spring and summer, Björn Höcke, a state leader of the party, was twice convicted of having used banned Nazi-era slogans during campaign stops. Sections of the party, including its entire youth wing, is considered extremist by domestic intelligence.
In his commentary, Musk dismissed any criticism that the party could be too far-right by pointing to the private life of the party’s lead candidate. “The portrayal of the AfD as far-right is clearly wrong considering that Alice Weidel, the leader of the party, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka! Does that sound like Hitler to you? Come on!” he wrote.
For the AfD, the endorsement is viewed as a potential boon, even if it is too soon to tell whether Musk’s initial posting on X had an effect on the party’s polling. The party has been posting portions of the text on social media.
Comments