1 of 2 | Protesters are shown demonstrating against the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany in Hanover, Germany, on Dec. 2, 2017. American billionaire Elon Musk on Friday tweeted strong support for the party, which has been classified by German authorities as a right-wing extremist group. File Photo by Filip Singer/EPA-EFE
Dec. 20 (UPI) — U.S. billionaire Elon Musk on Friday said “only” the far-right Alternative for Germany party, currently running second in German polls with about 19% support nationwide, can “save” the country.
In a post on his wholly-owned social media platform X, the world’s richest man gave the full-throated endorsement for the AfD while reposting a video by Naomi Seibt, a German right-wing social media influencer.
Germans are expected to vote in snap elections on Feb. 23. A conservative coalition headed by the Christian Democratic Union’s Friedrich Merz is leading in the polls with about 32%.
“Only the AfD can save Germany,” Musk wrote over Seibt’s video, in which she blasts Merz for being “horrified by the idea” that Germany should follow the examples of Musk and Argentine President Javier Milei in espousing right-wing populism.
Merz “staunchly rejects a pro-freedom approach and refuses any discussion with the AfD,” Seibt wrote.
Friday’s post is not the first time Musk has expressed support for the AfD, which is classified by German domestic intelligence authorities as a suspected right-wing extremist party.
In June, the close adviser to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump wrote that he did not view the AfD as an extremist organization. Those remarks came after reports circulated that AfD representatives met with extremist groups in which they discussed the mass expulsion or “remigration” of foreigners and Germans with migrant backgrounds.
The AfD quickly amplified Musk’s statement on Friday.
“If you also want to save Germany, then join in and fill out the membership application right away,” the party posted on X, while AfD leader Alice Weidel wrote in English to Musk, “You are absolutely right,” and blasted what she called the “Soviet European Union” and labeled former conservative German Chancellor Angela Merkel a “socialist.”
Musk’s intervention into German politics elicited a cautious reaction from the lame-duck government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who told reporters in Berlin that while freedom of speech applies to billionaires such as him, that freedom “also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain good political advice.”
Harsher criticism came from other German political figures.
Matthias Miersch, secretary general of Scholz’s Social Democrats, called the remarks “election interference,” telling the news portal T-Online Musk’s remarks are an “alarming signal” and declared, “We are clearly opposed to that. Germany needs neither foreign influences nor Trumpism. Stay out, Elon.”
The head of the CDU’s workers’ wing, Dennis Radtke, told the German newspaper Handelsblatt it is “threatening, irritating and unacceptable that a key figure in the future U.S. government is interfering in the German election campaign,” adding that Musk is becoming more and more of a “threat to democracy in the Western world” and has “converted X into a disinformation machine.”