The tech entrepreneur and close advisor to Donald Trump Elon Musk has taken a stunning new public step in its support for the far right German the Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party, publishing a favorable opinion piece for the newspaper Welt am Sonntag, which prompted the commentary editor to resign in protest.
The German-language commentary launched online on Saturday before being published on Sunday in the flagship newspaper of the Axel Springer media group, which also owns the US political news site Politico.
Musk uses populist and personal language to try to deny the AfD’s extremist bent, and the essay expands on his message on his social media platform Germany”.
Translated, Musk’s article says: “The portrayal of the AfD as right-wing extremist is clearly false, given that Alice Weidel, the party’s leader, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka! Does this remind you of Hitler? Please!”
German domestic intelligence services have classified the AfD nationally as a suspected case of extremism since 2021.
Shortly after the article was published online, opinion section editor Eva Marie Kogel used the American tech mogul’s own platform. post the X that she had submitted her resignation.
“I have always enjoyed running the opinion department at Welt and Wams. Today a text from Elon Musk published in Welt am Sonntag. Yesterday I submitted my resignation after printing,” she posted.
She included a link to Musk’s comment post.
The AfD has a strongly anti-immigration stance and, like new President Donald Trump towards the United States, calls for mass expulsions from Germany. Earlier in December, Musk not only showed his support for the AfD, but the party’s hard line on immigration appeared to resonate with the new US vice president, JD Vance, on MSNBC. reported.
Senior Welt Group numbers weighed in on Saturday.
“Democracy and journalism thrive on freedom of expression. This means dealing with polarizing positions and classifying them journalistically,” the newspaper’s designated editor-in-chief, Jan Philipp Burgard, and Ulf Poschardt, who takes over as editorial director on January 1, told Reuters.
They said the discussion on Musk’s post, which attracted about 340 comments several hours after it was published, was “very revealing.”
Under Musk’s comment, the newspaper published a response from Burgard.
“Musk’s diagnosis is correct, but his therapeutic approach, that only the AfD can save Germany, is fatally wrong,” he wrote, referring to the AfD’s desire to leave the Union European and to seek to get closer to Russia as well as to appease China.
Both Musk and Weidel posted later a link to the article on.
The AfD’s support for Musk, who has also defended his right to influence German politics through his “significant investments”, comes as Germans are due to vote on February 23 after a coalition government led by Chancellor German Olaf Scholz, collapsed late this fall.
The AfD comes second in opinion polls and may be able to thwart a center-right or center-left majority, but Germany’s main, more centrist parties have pledged to avoid any support from the AfD at national level.