Elon Musk took his support for Germany’s far-right party to the next level on Thursday, hosting a live chat with its leader, Alice Weidel.
The 74-minute conversation covered energy policy, German bureaucracy, Adolf Hitler, Mars and the meaning of life.
The world’s richest man has unequivocally urged Germans to support the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in the upcoming elections.
It is the tech billionaire’s latest controversial foray into European politics.
This discussion grew significantly as Elon Musk was accused of meddling in Germany’s early elections.
But the interview, conducted in English, was arguably just as much a chance for the AfD to reach an international audience via Musk’s X platform.
Knowing her close relationship with Donald Trump, Alice Weidel wanted to express her support for the American president-elect and his team.
She insisted her party was “conservative” and “libertarian” but had been “negatively characterized” as extremist by the mainstream media.
Sections of the AfD have been officially classified as right-wing extremists by German authorities.
A BBC News investigation Last year, links were established between some party figures and far-right networks, while one of the party’s far-right leaders, Björn Höcke, was fined last year for using a banned Nazi expression – although he denied doing so knowingly.
During the conversation, Weidel said Hitler was in fact a “communist”, despite the Nazi leader’s notable anti-communism who invaded the Soviet Union.
“He wasn’t conservative,” she said. “He wasn’t a libertarian. He was a communist, socialist guy.”
She also described Hitler as an “anti-Semitic socialist.”
On other topics, she and Musk talked about — and sometimes laughed about — Germany’s infamous bureaucracy, its “crazy” abandonment of nuclear power, the need for tax cuts, free speech and “awareness”.
During a conversation that was sometimes stilted and sometimes surprising, a surreal moment came when Weidel asked Mr. Musk if he believed in God.
The answer – for those who want to know – was that he is open to the idea because he seeks to “understand the universe as much as possible”.
Despite all the anticipation, this exchange surely wasn’t on many people’s bingo card.
The AfD, which also opposes Berlin’s military aid to Ukraine, comes second in Germany, with early federal elections scheduled for February 23.
However, he will not be able to take power because the other parties will not work with him.
That didn’t stop Elon Musk from hailing Weidel as the “leading candidate for president of Germany.”
He justified his intervention by citing his significant investments in the country, including a huge Tesla factory just outside Berlin.
And he rejects the characterization of the AfD as far-right while previously labeling Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz is a “fool”.
Scholz, whose chances of retaining the chancellorship appear slim, then insisted he was “remaining calm” in the face of Musk’s attacks.
