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”.
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.
no joke
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%
It took me a while to notice.
For those still unaware: there are barely hidden salutes.