BERLIN (Reuters) – U.S. billionaire Elon Musk backed the AfD party in an opinion piece for German newspaper Welt am Sonntag published online on Saturday, prompting a comments editor to resign in protest.
In the commentary, published in the German-language flagship newspaper of Axel Springer media group, Musk expanded on his post on the X social media platform last week by claiming that “only the AfD can save Germany.”
“The portrayal of the AfD as far-right is clearly false, considering that Alice Weidel, the party's leader, has a gay partner from Sri Lanka! Does this sound like Hitler to you? Please!” Musk said in the piece.
The German domestic intelligence agency has classified the AfD party nationally as a suspected extremist case since 2021.
Shortly after the article was published online, Opinion editor Eva Marie Kugel wrote on X that she had tendered her resignation, with a link to the comment.
The newspaper's editor-in-chief-designate, Jean-Philippe Beauregard, and Ulf Boschardt, who will take over as publisher on January 1, told Reuters: “Democracy and journalism thrive on freedom of expression. This includes dealing with polarized positions and categorizing them journalistically.”
They said the discussion around Musk's article, which had about 340 comments several hours after it was published, was “very revealing.”
Under Musk's comment, the newspaper published a response from Beauregard.
“Musk’s diagnosis is correct, but his therapeutic approach, which is that only the AfD can save Germany, is fatally wrong,” he wrote, referring to the AfD’s desire to leave the European Union and seek rapprochement with Russia and appease China. .
The AfD's support from Musk, who has also defended his right to influence German politics due to his “significant investments”, comes as Germans are scheduled to vote on February 23 following the collapse of the coalition government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The AfD is ranked second in opinion polls and may be able to thwart a center-right or center-left majority, but Germany's mainstream and more centrist parties have pledged to avoid any support from the AfD at the national level.
