Elon Musk is nothing if not shameless.
He proved that again this weekend, when he published an op-ed in one of Germany’s biggest newspapers, Die Welt, doubling down on his earlier support for the racist, far-right political party Alternative for Germany (AfD).
In the op-ed—reportedly published online Saturday and in print Sunday—Musk writes that the AfD is “the last spark of hope for this country” and, essentially, that his vast wealth makes his politics a matter of public interest.
“As someone who has made significant investments in Germany’s industrial and technological landscape, I believe I have the right to speak openly about its political orientation,” Musk writes, according to a Google translation of the text. As the country approaches a snap election on February 23, following the November collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government, AfD is polling second, at 19 percent, behind the center-right Christian Democratic Union of Germany.
Musk outlines five areas in which he claims AfD reigns supreme:
- “Economic revival” — Musk praises the party’s focus on de-regulation, writing, “Its approach of reducing government over-regulation, cutting taxes, and deregulating the market reflects the principles that made Tesla and SpaceX successful.”
- “Immigration and national identity” —Here Musk calls for “the preservation of German culture and security” in the face of globalization and immigration.
- “Energy and independence” — Musk lambastes the current German government’s decision to “phase out nuclear power and instead rely heavily on coal and imported gas, as well as volatile wind and solar power.”
- “Political realism” — Musk lauds the party for eschewing “the political correctness that often obscures the truth” (sound familiar?) and argues that the AfD can’t possibly be far-right because its leader, Alice Weidel, “has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka! Does that sound like Hitler to you? Come on!” (Yes, he actually wrote this.)
- “Innovation and the future” — Musk claims AfD “advocates for educational reforms that encourage critical thinking instead of indoctrination and supports the technology industries that represent the future of global economic leadership.”
His op-ed was published alongside a rebuttal from editor Jan Philipp Burgard, who writes that “Musk’s diagnosis is correct, but his therapeutic approach that only the AfD can save Germany is fatally wrong.”
Burgard notes that the AfD wants to remove Germany from the EU, which he says would be a “catastrophe” given the nation’s reliance on exports and the reliance of German citizens on the EU single market. He further argues that AfD’s isolationist focus could harm its relationship with the US in particular—and “doesn’t Elon Musk want to see many Teslas rolling along Germany’s highways in the future?” And, Burgard points out, Musk’s claims that the party isn’t so bad ignore the reality that Björn Höcke, another AfD leader, has been convicted—twice—of using banned Nazi slogans.
The publication of Musk’s op-ed elicited immediate internal backlash. Die Welt‘s opinion editor, Eva Marie Kogel, announced on X on Saturday that she’d resigned after it posted online.
Musk’s piece was meant to expand upon Musk’s December 20 X post that “only the AfD can save Germany.” (The party thanked him with a public video from party leader Weidel.) But as my colleague Alex Nguyen wrote, AfD is even controversial among Europe’s nationalists.
In May, France’s far-right party led by Marine Le Pen split from the AfD in its European Parliament coalition after the German party’s top candidate, Maximilian Krah, said that a person was “not automatically a criminal” just because they had been a member of the SS, Adolph Hitler’s paramilitary organization.
When you dig more into the priorities of AfD leaders, it makes sense that they’re on an island of their own—and why Musk is trying to court them. Some party officials, like Trump, have been clear about their desire to carry out mass deportations. As Mother Jones contributor Josh Axelrod, a Berlin-based reporter, wrote recently:
The AfD’s central pledge is to counteract the so-called Great Replacement, a conspiracy theory that claims white Europeans or Americans are the victims of a plot by nonwhite immigrants to “replace” them and poison their societies. It was the inspiration for shooters to take up arms and target Muslim victims in Christchurch, Jews in Pittsburgh, Black people in Buffalo, and gay people in Bratislava.
“It’s the thing that brings together the far-right in multiple countries,” Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the nonprofit Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told Mother Jones.
As Burgard put it in his Musk rebuttal: “Even a genius can be wrong.”
