The tech bro billionaire drew criticism from German politicians for supporting the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk strengthened his support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, calling the group the country’s “last spark of hope” in an opinion piece published Saturday.
Musk, who spent more than a quarter billion dollars supporting Donald Trump‘s election in the U.S., wrote that AfD “can lead [Germany] into a future where economic prosperity, cultural integrity and technological innovation are not just wishes, but reality.”
Germany will elect a new government on Feb. 23 following the collapse of the three-party governing coalition last month. The country has been plagued by economic stagnation.
“The traditional parties have failed in Germany,” he Tesla CEO and X owner wrote. “Their policies have led to economic stagnation, social unrest, and the erosion of national identity.”
This is not the first time Musk has supported AfD. Last week, he shared a video on X from a far-right political activist and wrote, “Only the AfD can save Germany.”
The AfD, which has been growing in popularity, espouses a “Germany first” ideology. The party supports virulently anti-immigrant and white supremacist views and has advocated for mass deportations. Its leader has proposed segregating disabled students from regular schools. The party, which has connections to neo-Nazis, has been deemed “suspected extremist” by German authorities while its youth wing has been classified as “confirmed extremist.”
In September, the party won a state election in Thuringia, marking the first time a far-right party has had that kind of victory since the Nazi era. While it is unlikely AfD will win the national election in February, and Germany’s other leading parties have said they will not form a coalition government with AfD, its rising popularity is causing concern.
Musk’s opinion piece drew the ire of left-leaning German politicians. “It’s unacceptable that foreign billionaires try to influence our political landscape and support parties that undermine our democratic values,” Matthias Miersch, general secretary of Germany’s ruling Social Democrats (SPD), told the Handelsblatt newspaper. Miersch also criticized media conglomerate Axel Springer for the “shameful and dangerous” decision to allow the piece to run in one of its papers, Welt am Sonntag. Axel Springer also owns Politico.
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Welt opinion editor, Eva Marie Kogel, resigned in protest of Musk’s article. “I always enjoyed leading the opinion section of WELT and WAMS. Today an article by Elon Musk appeared in Welt am Sonntag. I handed in my resignation yesterday after it went to print,” Kogel wrote on X shortly after the piece was published online.
Along with Musk’s opinion piece, the paper published an article by Welt’s soon-to-be editor-in-chief, Jan Philipp Burgard, who wrote, according to The Washington Post, “Musk’s diagnosis is correct, but his therapeutic approach, that only the AfD can save Germany, is fatally wrong.”
Per The Post, Burgard and the Welt group’s current editor-in-chief, Ulf Poschardt, said in a statement to German Press Agency, dpa, that Musk’s opinion piece prompted a discussion that was “very insightful.”
“Democracy and journalism thrive on freedom of expression,” they added.
