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”.
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?
His 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.
People in Sweden definitely care. Multiple industries striked against tesla.
they still are. it’s been 14 months now.
Good. Solidarity with them.
I should have clarified I’m speaking mostly of the U.K. and and USA.
In Australia there’s a phrase “temporarily embarrassed millionaires”.
We have a two party system, one more progressive and one more conservative.
My parents are retired. They’re not wealthy and are living a meager existence on a government pension. They will always vote conservative, despite their best bet at better public services and social security on offer from the progressive party.
The reason is, they feel like they ought to be wealthy or at least they want to act like they’re wealthy. They feel as though they are more closely aligned with the views of wealthy people than they are with the views of poor people. They feel as though they belong to a class of wealthy people, it’s just that through a cruel twist of fate they don’t have any money.
There’s also the moral / ethical perspective that is ultimately meaningless but resonates with a lot of voters. For example, banning naughty books from schools. Obviously kids will access much naughtier content in other ways, but “protecting the kids from gays” is very communicable to low information voters.
The AfD does not have interests in favour of the working class. They constantly vote against laws helping anyone but the rich. They are just a tool for the rich and russia to destabilize our democracy.
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…
Well, yeah, things are different in Germany than in the States. For one thing, there’s proportional representation.
But, and I know this is unlikely, this time could be different. Trump actually got the popular vote. Not by much, but he did get it. It is physically possible for it to happen in Germany, and Europe is not ready for it.
Basically, people would be voting for Musk lol. I mean haven’t you heard that he is the genius who designed all of spaceX’s rockets and all of tesla’s cars and factories? Who wouldn’t want somebody like that running their government? (with tremendous amounts of sarcasm)
I mean I like to think that Europeans are less gullible than Americans. IDK, are they less gullible than Americans? 'Cause if not, then yeah, it could happen. Barely.
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.
You know, if people like Musk hate immigration so much then they should encourage investment and peace in other countries so that people don’t want to leave their home countries.
No one really wants to go to Europe etc., they’re either literally dying in poverty or being killed in their own countries.
Let’s be honest, the poor state of countries where these immigrants are coming from is the fault of decades of neoconservative policies of regional destabilization. The West needs to answers for its short-sighted thinking now, and they’re having a hard time understanding how this is a self created problem.
Indeed. Imagine if Mexico was governed like Canada. The Mexicans would be building a wall to prevent the Americans from swamping their country.
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.
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.
Die Welt is not reapectable. Its Springer Verlag. Basically the Murdoch of Germany.
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 a massive building programme.
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.
just saying the farmers i know all tell the same tale. refugees in SH had little to no food, but the farmers werent mistreating the people like the people of föhr did. and that her parents right? and thats that values of life she grew up with. and that explains a lot about her hate media outlet. so i just ask for the island of föhr to be removed. sylt needs sand. lets make things right.
Dude Westerland made a Nazi war criminal mayor after the war and now are a luxury resort. Practically all non-affluent natives are living on the mainland and are commuting to the island to wipe rich people’s asses who faint at the sight of a carousal of punks.
I’d say take both Föhr and Sylt and give it, shovel load by shovel load, to the Halligen so they can properly prepare for rising tides. Hooge deserves to have the highest peak in the whole state.
agreed. btw first innenminister to SH was a Waffen SS judge. ofcourse a christian democrat.
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.
“Jean-Baptiste… Emanuel… Zorg.”
And his worst enemy - fruit.
That’s not who I was thinking of, but sure. Him too.
No need to compare him to Hitler, he’s evil enough on his own.
I call it as I see it.
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 think it was more that he didn’t have the means. Propaganda was much harder before the Internet and social media.
That’s kind of where I was going with my comment. 80 years ago, what these billionaires are doing was simply not possible. I’m not saying Hitler is not worse than Musk. Hitler could only dream about having this much power.
This is AI generated! No way he actually ever styles his hair like that!
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”
Damn, gotta wonder what Putin has on Elon.
I think putin just showed him that he can do what happened in Russia in 1990 and 2000 and get richer from stealing from the country.
So you want to tell me that a nazi supports nazis??
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.
pens German newspaper opinion piece supporting far-right
Musk fails to understand the racist themselves are attracted to the people they want to kill. DNA samples were taken from Hitler’s relatives and they found Haplogroup E1b1b1, which means the motherfucker was part African and Jewish. His excuse for supporting Weidel and the fucking AfD is pathetic.
Man, I don’t care how female, lesbian, or interracial anybody at the AfD is. They’re a bunch of Putin dick riders. Their private lives don’t enter into it.
(Incidentally, people like Musk and Trump love to question the credentials of politicians sharing the exact same attributes that this time around Musk has decided to praise. So, Musk, are they incompetent diversity hires, or are they “proof” that the party isn’t racist? They can’t be both!)
+1…Indeed.
The most fun part is, that Alice Seidel is a lesbian, living in Switzerland that adppted a Child with -how do i put it- high melantonin
Yep, +1. Like the Nazis, MAGAts, Communists and all the other extreme right and left nutters, a bunch of hypocrites.
E1b1b1 is common in some Afroasiatic speakers. It probably traces back to the Neolithic Levantine farmers who spread around the Mediterranean but only a guess.
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.
What a pansy.
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.
If he’s angry that the GOP is full of racists then he’s got a funny way of showing it.
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?
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
This article has been in the works for longer than the recent row about importing indentured servants.
Come off it, that man hasn’t written anything.
Much less in German
(Unless he speaks German?? I’ve never heard him speak German)
He only speaks it at the rallys
He really wants to be Göring.
