Written by Sarah Marsh and Thomas Escritt
BERLIN (Reuters) – Elon Musk urged Germans to vote for the far-right Alternative for Germany party in the upcoming national elections during a broadcast he hosted with the party's leader on his social media platform on Thursday.
Last year, Musk used X and his vast fortune to help Republican candidate Donald Trump win the US presidential election on November 5. Now he has become vocal in his support for far-right and anti-establishment parties in Europe ahead of Germany's national elections scheduled for February 23.
The world's richest man has shown particular interest in Germany, the economic powerhouse of Europe, where he opened Tesla's (NASDAQ:) first European factory in 2022.
Musk presented the AfD's candidate for chancellor Alice Weidel, whose party ranks second in opinion polls but has almost no chance of forming a government due to other parties' refusal to work with her, as “the leading candidate to run Germany.”
In a conversation marred by laughter from both sides, they agreed that Germany was hampered by a “crazy” energy policy, excessive bureaucracy, and uncontrolled immigration.
“People really need to support the AfD, otherwise things will get worse in Germany,” he said. “I think Alice Weidel is a very sensible person. Nothing outrageous has been suggested.”
Musk was doubling his support last month for the Alternative for Germany (AfD), an anti-immigration, anti-Islam party that German security services have described as a far-right party, sparking panic in Berlin.
Speaking fluently in English, Weidel expressed gratitude for Musk's support, saying that the opportunity to speak with Musk was the first time in 10 years that she had been allowed a platform to speak her mind without interruption from a media world that, she said, was biased against her.
“People like to censor things they don't agree with,” Musk agreed after the two compared German media and politicians' treatment of the AfD to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's treatment of pro-Jewish votes in the 1930s.
Leaders across Europe have expressed concern about Musk's political activities. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez accused Musk of undermining democracy, without mentioning his name directly, while the French Foreign Minister urged the European Union to use its laws more forcefully to protect against external interference.
Musk, a self-described liberal, called German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier a “tyrant” for criticizing the AfD party and called on Chancellor Olaf Scholz to resign after a deadly car attack at a German Christmas market. The two men belong to the center-left Social Democratic Party.
Last August, Musk had a similar conversation with Trump, who has since tasked the businessman with leading a campaign to make the US government more efficient.
In his conversation with Weidel, Musk recalled the bureaucratic hurdles he had to go through to open the German Tesla factory.
“I think our permit was 25,000 pages,” Musk said. “It all had to be printed on paper.” “And then there would have to be many, many copies. So it was literally a truckload of paper.”
On energy, Musk supported Germany's renewable energy ambitions, but agreed with Weidel that decommissioning nuclear power plants was a bad idea.
“When I saw that Germany was shutting down power plants after cutting off gas supplies from Russia, I thought… this is one of the craziest things I've ever seen,” he said.
