Elon Musk drückt seine Unterstützung für die rechtsextreme Partei AfD bei der deutschen Wahl aus

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/20/world/europe/elon-musk-afd-germany.html

Von ConsciousStop

29 Comments

  1. ConsciousStop on

    > Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a close adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump, on Friday endorsed Germany’s far-right party, a group with ties to neo-Nazis whose youth wing has been classified as “confirmed extremist” by German domestic intelligence.
    >
    > “Only the AfD can save Germany,” Mr. Musk posted to X, referring to the anti-immigrant party, the Alternative for Germany, by its German initials.
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    >In doing so, he is wading into German politics at a time of turmoil. The German government recently collapsed, leading to early elections planned for next year.
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    >Mr. Musk’s post was in response to an English-language video by a 24-year-old German far-right influencer, Naomi Seibt. She harshly criticized Friedrich Merz, whom polls show leading the race, for dismissing a rival’s suggestion that Germany look to Mr. Musk and another firebrand, President Javier Milei of Argentina, for ideas about reforming the country.
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    >Ms. Seibt also criticized Mr. Merz for ruling out joining any coalition with the AfD. The ethnonationalist and Islamophobic message of the once-fringe party has proved to be a strong vote-getter at the local level, especially in the more economically disadvantaged former East Germany.
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    >Mr. Musk’s post, which had more than 25 million views in roughly 10 hours, comes as Germany begins what promises to be an aggressive election campaign. The country will have an early election on Feb. 23 after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition collapsed in November.
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    >Like all the mainstream German parties, Mr. Merz’s center-right Christian Democratic Union has ruled out working with the AfD, which Mr. Scholz and others have called a threat to German democracy.
    >
    >News that members of the AfD attended a secret meeting with the Austrian extreme-right provocateur Martin Sellner, who has admitted to once being a member of a neo-Nazi group and has called for deporting migrants en masse, led to large protests early this year. Then, starting in May, a leading light of the party was twice given a hefty fine for using Nazi-era slogans during campaign stops.
    Last month in the eastern state of Saxony, police arrested eight people suspected of being members of what they called a right-wing extremist terrorist organization, which they said had been plotting to overthrow the government. Three of the eight were AfD members; one was an elected local official.
    >
    >The online endorsement from Mr. Musk garnered a quick response from Alice Weidel, the AfD’s top candidate. “Yes! You are perfectly right,” she posted just an hour after Mr. Musk’s post went up.
    >
    >Mr. Musk has long made heavy use of X, which he bought in 2022, to express his views on politics in the United States and abroad.
    >
    >In Britain, he has thrown his weight behind another insurgent, anti-immigrant party, Reform U.K., which is led by the longtime political disrupter Nigel Farage. He met on Monday with Mr. Farage and the party’s new treasurer, Nick Candy, at Mr. Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, to discuss the possibility of a donation by Mr. Musk to Reform U.K.
    Mr. Musk has yet to write Mr. Farage a check, and lawmakers in Britain are calling on the government to tighten campaign-finance laws to restrict foreign donations. But he has left little doubt of his endorsement.
    >
    >When Mr. Farage posted a photo of himself with Mr. Candy and Mr. Musk posing in front of a portrait of a younger Mr. Trump, along with the line “Britain needs Reform,” Mr. Musk replied, “Absolutely.”
    >
    >He also has picked repeated fights online with Britain’s Labour government, accusing it of using police-state tactics in going after people who used his X platform to spread misinformation after anti-immigrant riots broke out across Britain last summer, following a mass stabbing at a dance studio.
    >
    >Mr. Musk claimed that “civil war” was inevitable in Britain. After Prime Minister Keir Starmer activated an emergency plan to relieve pressure on overcrowded jails, under which defendants can be held longer in cells until space opens in prisons, Mr. Musk posted, “The U.K. is turning into a police state.”
    >
    >In Germany, Christian Lindner, the leader of the small, pro-business Free Democratic Party, suggested this month that the country should look toward Mr. Musk and Mr. Milei when thinking about disruption and reform.
    >
    >In her crudely edited video message on X, Ms. Seibt criticized Mr. Merz’s opposition to that idea as well as his repeated vow not to work with the AfD.
    >
    >The AfD is polling at 19 percent, and its leaders appeared ready to make the most of the post, apparently hoping that it could help attract more voters and serve as a jumping-off point for communications with the Trump White House.
    >
    >Some hours after her initial post, Ms. Weidel recorded a video addressing Mr. Musk’s post. “The Alternative for Germany is indeed the only alternative for our country; our very last option,” she said.
    >
    > On Friday, Mr. Lindner also addressed Mr. Musk over X: “Elon, I’ve initiated a policy debate inspired by ideas from you and Milei,” he said, explaining why Mr. Musk should not endorse the AfD. “Don’t rush to conclusions from afar.”

  2. Calcutec_1 on

    A good rule if you don’t want to be called a nazi is not openly supporting Nazis. Elon has horrible advisors

  3. kodos_der_henker on

    Elon supporting anti-EU and climate change denying parties in Europe, I guess someone is afraid of a strong Europe and wants to “kill” it before it can get him

  4. BipolarBear123 on

    Elon musk is one of the most hateable characters of our times

  5. elPerroAsalariado on

    What will it take fellow r/Europe poster?

    What will make you click? The fascists are circling around and are being funded by billionaires.

    How do we realistically get out of this?

  6. Freedom_for_Fiume on

    Just now he shared on X how can a judge cancel elections in Romania, “isn’t that a dictatorship”. If you were ever in doubt he is a Russian kompromat

  7. This man is becoming a serious problem for the world. His lean to fascism and the extreme right is disturbing. Especially with a platform like X and a role in the US government.

  8. Genuinely curious, what is it with this guy and his sudden open involvement into politics in US and Europe? What is his endgame, and why is nobody in power alarmed enough to do something about it?

  9. So his way to disturb Europe is to fund far right parties. What is Europe going to do about it.

  10. reviery_official on

    I mean, of course. AfD is a Russian asset, Musk is a Russian asset. Birds of a feather…

  11. Holy shit. My opinion of him already plummeted immensely over the years, but now I wish I could go back in time 20 years and slap the everloving shit out of my younger self for ever thinking this subhuman filth was putting humanity on the right track. All he is is a wannabe Hank Scorpio.

  12. “The last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everyone else, we ended up disagreeing”.

  13. Melxgibsonx616 on

    Maybe it is time for Europe to be a bit more pragmatic and ban both Twitter and TikTok. These are already weopnized by Russia anyway. 

  14. Sallende11 on

    Bingo!!!! I fucking knew it! Kremlin has something on him or he has a deal with them regarding financing some space exploration. Now it all makes sense.

  15. Congratulations Americans. Not only you voted to destroy your democracy, you voted to bring down the whole world. Roosevelt is spinning in his grave

  16. US car maker gives money to German fascists… history surely rhymes.

  17. Fandango_Jones on

    We’re going full cyberpunk in this timeline apparently. Musk city

  18. MeasurementTall8677 on

    Serious question, what defines it as ‘far’ right I heard Italy’s Meloni described as the same prior to her appointment.

    Can someone highlight policy positions that are outside the mainstream of traditional left/right divide

  19. WhatHorribleWill on

    Surely being sponsored by the richest man on earth will convince the voters that Trump, Farage and Weidel are not “anti-establishment” candidates, right

    Right?!

  20. SpaceEngineering on

    I want to say this as clearly as I can. Phony Stark from Temu, Fuck right off.

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