“Elon Musk is trying to influence the federal election with posts on X and the opinion piece,” a German government spokesman said Monday. “Musk is of course free to express his opinion. After all, freedom of expression also includes the biggest nonsense.”
In his op-ed, Musk argued that “only the AfD can save Germany.” He had previously made the same statement on his medium X. “Portraying the AfD as far-right is clearly incorrect since Alice Weidel, the party’s leader, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka. Does that sound like Hitler to you? Please do,” Musk wrote.
The ruling party SPD has also criticized Musk for his support for the AfD. Lars Klingbeil, the co-chair of the Social Democrats, compared the entrepreneur to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Both want to influence our elections and specifically support the AfD against democracy. They want to weaken Germany and plunge it into chaos,” he said.
Germany will go to the polls on February 23. This is necessary because parliament earlier this month withdrew its confidence in the cabinet of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. In the polls, the AfD is in second place, just above Scholz’s SPD and well behind the Christian Democratic CDU/CSU.
Musk has also previously been accused of political interference in other European countries, such as the United Kingdom, Italy and Hungary.
