The tech entrepreneur and close adviser to Donald Trump Elon Musk has taken a stunning new public step in his support for the far-right German political party Alternative for Germany (AfD), publishing a supportive guest opinion piece for the country’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper that has prompted the commentary editor to resign in protest.
The commentary piece in German was launched online on Saturday ahead of being published on Sunday in the flagship paper of the Axel Springer media group, which also owns the US politics news site Politico.
Musk uses populist and personal language to try to deny AfD’s extremist bent and the piece expands on his post on the social media platform X that he owns, on which he last week claimed that “only the AfD can save Germany”.
Damn, gotta wonder what Putin has on Elon.
It seems bizarre to me that the prevailing assumption is that Musk’s interests align with those of the working class.
As in, why TF would anyone who is not a billionaire want a billionaire to restructure government?
He’s blunder in Sweden should tell everyone clearly where he stands on workers rights.
I don’t think people care. I don’t get why people keep going against their own interests, and it’s the only thing I can think of, or they think the rich deserve their wealth.
I’m having trouble finding the original op-ed. Could somebody provide a link?
This is what they claim as the source https://www.welt.de/debatte/kommentare/plus254982012/Warum-Elon-Musk-auf-die-AfD-setzt-und-warum-er-dabei-irrt.html
Well, thanks, fwiw. Now, the only way for me to check the quotations first hand is to give money to the idiots who printed it lol. Ausgezeichnet. I checked the Internet Archive. They just show the same opening paragraph.
Come off it, that man hasn’t written anything.
Much less in German
(Unless he speaks German?? I’ve never heard him speak German)
No respectable newspaper would platform a foreign billionaire trying to meddle in an election. The fact that the owners pushed this through, overruling their own staff, should be a clear sign to everyone: billionaires buy up news organizations to influence the population and undermine democracy. Even if the individual journalists have the utmost integrity, they will just get strong armed by upper management. The same thing happened with Bezos and the Washington Post.
Welt am Sonntag ist part of the Springer Media Group. They have a long history of pushing populist, conservative and right agendas and publishing Musk’s opinion piece falls perfectly in line with the election meddling they are doing.
allies should have bombed the island of Föhr back then.
anyone remember how friede (head of the nazi news) transferred 1 billion € to one of her employees (döpfner) to start a TV station (BILD TV)? no taxes were paid because Friede is best friends with Angela Merkel. ofcourse BILD TV failed terribly but funds are used for propaganda.
anyway, if you ask the people that saw Friede Springer on Föhr grow up after WW2 might be able to tell you a story about how they let the refugees starve in the 50s. but officially everyone is just so scared of Friede Springer you’ll never read about their murders.
After the war pretty much all refugees in Schleswig-Holstein were starving, ration cards were not sufficient for anyone and refugees were in a worse situation to self-supply, housing was more than scarce, the refugee to native ratio was 3:4, multiple families sharing apartments, a family to a room. To this day many smaller cities are dominated by our version of commie blocks built back then things would’ve gotten very ugly without those things.
Dunno about the situation on Föhr in particular, and I don’t doubt that Friede is an assclown, but you gotta be more specific. Did she, at the tender age of eight, e.g. prevent people from rummaging through already harvested fields to see what they can find? Demand payment for wool caught on fences?
Did we even distribute refugees to the islands back then? Doesn’t really sound sensible or practical, there wasn’t really anything more than subsistence farming going on anywhere on the Frisian islands and, short of the addition of tourism, still isn’t. Industry on Föhr is like yes they have an electrician, a car mechanic, and a carpenter.
Note that political meddling and unscrupelous behaviour has always been the hallmark of the Axel-Springer Media.
They have successfully motivated the murder of the student activist Rudi Dutschke in the 60s by a Neonazi terrorist.
In 2011 they have cheered themselves for having pushed the then president of Germany Christian Wulff (it is a ceremonial role, the head of the executive is the chancellor) with a smear campaign based on lies and fabrications.
They hold the absolute majority of reprimands for violations of journalistic standards by the publishers organization ethics board Presserat.
The former editor in chief of the Bild Zeitung Julian Reichelt had to be kicked out a few years back for sexual harassment and coercion of multiple women employees. But only after the Company tried to keep it under covers and pressured another publisher to not publish their investigative research in Germany, so US media had to publish it first.
They were always like this and they will always be like this. Axel-Springer is also the main pro US and pro Israel voice in Germanys media landscape. It should be telling everyone where things are headed that they switched now from supporting the far right neoliberal FDP to the fascist AfD.
It’s already lost. Brace yourselves. Buy your fucking toilet paper now. This is hyper-fucked.
Yes, but imagine all the rage clicks!
He’s basically a professional media villain at this point. Not many people take him seriously, and I doubt the share among journalists is larger.
To anyone confused: Musk may live in the US, but like all the uber-wealthy, he doesn’t consider himself a citizen of anywhere because he can jump in his private jet and fly anywhere on a whim without needing to have his passport checked by anyone.
These people do not live in the same world as us, and the fact that Musk is knee-deep in numerous countries politics is ample fucking evidence of such. He will support any group that benefits him in the short-term, that’s all.
He believes that, as one of the Owners, it’s his prerogative to appoint the viceroys who will rule on his behalf. And that he owns enough of Germany to veto any reluctance they might have of having another Nazi government.
Good luck on him trying that. I still strongly believe that things are very different here…
Yes, you won’t get another iteration of the Nazi party directly. Like there won’t be swastikas and eagles and Jew-hatred. But you could absolutely get fascism. Germany supported the genocide in Israel, which is apparently a-ok because it’s not Jews who are suffering. As long as you have an Other to hate and fear, and enough uneducated/brainwashed people to rally behind you, you can fash it up. Chaplin moustache notwithstanding.
“Jean-Baptiste… Emanuel… Zorg.”
And his worst enemy - fruit.
That’s not who I was thinking of, but sure. Him too.
This is AI generated! No way he actually ever styles his hair like that!
No need to compare him to Hitler, he’s evil enough on his own.
Hitler did horrible things the old way, with killing and hotting. In many ways, these billionaires are worse. Not wanting to defend him, but Hitler didn’t try to meddle with all governments around the world and enslave the whole working class. If people like Elmo get his way, slavery would be back on the menu.
I call it as I see it.
Billionaire Trump adviser said his ‘significant investments’ in the country justified his wading into German politics
At least we agree: his wealth is everyone’s problem. The difference is that I think it’s time we do something about it.
Love that logic–“i opened up shop in your country, therefore i have the right to meddle with your politics”
It took me a while to notice.
For those still unaware: there are barely hidden salutes.
Please tell me this is a joke. Are they really that blatant, and if so, why are they still not forbidden?
They managed to get away with it because it says “we’ll protect your children” - like a roof. Yes it is ridiculous, we’re working on it.
Because the other parties are either eyeballing possible coalition options, are chickenshit or have adapted a lot of far right positions from the AfD and worry, that closer scrutiny would also bring them into question.
And the reason for these things is because the people support it, roughly 30%
no joke
Musk needs to fucking watch himself.
It’s like nobody is even TRYING to kill him.
I’m pretty sure he’s avoiding being seen in public at all except for certain controlled environments.
pens German newspaper opinion piece supporting far-right
Isn’t he angry that the gop is full of racists. And now he’s supporting the racist AfD? Man if only he could have some form of consistency. I’m sick and tired of him.
This article has been in the works for longer than the recent row about importing indentured servants.
He’s angry that the GOP might cut off his supply of cheap, vulnerable, exploitable H-1B workers. Otherwise, racism is still his thing.
We are witnessing two competing forms of racism. Which one will prevail? Exclusionary or exploitative?
If he’s angry that the GOP is full of racists then he’s got a funny way of showing it.
Musk has been a racist for a long time, sounds like he finally found his people.
Oh, he is super racist
Isn’t he angry that the gop is full of racists.
Has he looked in the mirror lately?
Apparently he thinks the AfD and Obama era Democrats have the same political positions. So. Uh. I don’t know, don’t look at me like that. ¯\(°_o)/¯
He’s accusing others of racism, but it’s really about him wanting cheap H-1B workers from India.
full of racists who say he can’t be President and Emperor of the USA because he wasn’t born there? I think that’s what he means
Why the Welt am Sonntag? Was the Bild overbooked? Because that’s where this kind of trash belongs in.
Welt is Bild in disguise. Same publisher.
They both belong to the Axel Springer corpo. Same AS politico by the way.
Meh. Musk isn’t needed for people to vote for the fear mongers. (Also Hasselhoff had no hands in the fall of the berlin wall. Sorry :)
That’s a self made social problem (i.e. falling trust in the often untrustworthy politicians - i’m looking at you cum-ex-olaf or at you sabotaging-every-effort-Lindner). And an educational problem (eh, a well funded education system in country without substantial natural resources, who needs that anyways? Political education? Pfff, who cares.)
People have fears, opportunists use fears to gain power. I think.
(Also Hasselhoff had no hands in the fall of the berlin wall. Sorry :)
Please don’t. Alcoholism is a disease. That’s different.
Edit: wording
Removed by mod
