Elon Musk praised the co-leader of the German party Alternative for Germany (AfD) as \u201cvery reasonable\u201d on Thursday, urging Germans to vote for the far-right party in what is the latest high-profile sign of the tech billionaire\u2019s involvement in European politics. <\/p>\n
\u201cOnly AfD can save Germany, end of story, and people really need to get behind AfD, and otherwise things are going to get very, very much worse in Germany,\u201d Musk said during an audio livestream alongside party co-leader Alice Weidel on X. <\/p>\n
Musk, a close ally of US President-elect Donald Trump, compared the political climate in Germany to that in the United States, saying that people were unhappy and demanded change when voting for Trump in November. Germany holds its own election February 23. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are unhappy with the situation, you must vote for change, and that is why I\u2019m really strongly recommending that people vote for AfD,\u201d Musk said. <\/p>\n
He went on to claim the president-elect will solve Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine \u201cvery quickly,\u201d prompting Weidel to say she wishes the incoming Trump administration will \u201cend that terrible war\u201d because \u201cEuropeans – they cannot.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThey completely depend on the US, in the sense of – \u2018oh the USA need(s) to do the entire job. We don\u2019t need to do anything. We just escalate the entire conflict against Russia.\u2019 It\u2019s very dangerous, what\u2019s going on here, and only you can basically stop it,\u201d Weidel told Musk. <\/p>\n
Weidel also said that it was \u201cunbelievable\u201d how Germany treated Trump while he was campaigning for president, saying that it caused her \u201cphysical pain\u201d to see him \u201cdisparaged.\u201d <\/p>\n
In the same conversation, Weidel said that Germany needs to protect both the existence of Israel but also to \u201ctake our responsibility as a German nation state to protect Jewish life,\u201d which she said was threatened by \u201cMuslim crime.\u201d <\/p>\n
AfD is the \u201conly protector of the Jewish people\u201d in Germany, she claimed. <\/p>\n
Musk has run into hot water among European leaders \u2013 particularly in the UK and Germany \u2013 for playing politics abroad as the world braces for Trump\u2019s imminent return to the White House. <\/p>\n
The US billionaire has been increasingly vocal in his support for Europe\u2019s far-right and seems keen to strengthen ties between such parties and Trump\u2019s camp. <\/p>\n
Another example of this is the burgeoning relationship between Italy\u2019s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Trump\u2019s cohort, with Meloni hosted in Mar-a-Lago over the weekend and hailed as a \u201cfantastic woman\u201d by the President-elect. <\/p>\n
Musk has publicly endorsed the AfD ahead of Germany\u2019s snap election on February 23, in which it is expected to come in second behind the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the party of former Chancellor Angela Merkel. <\/p>\n
\u201cOnly the AfD can save Germany,\u201d Musk wrote on X on December 20 after the German government collapsed that week, prompting Weidel to respond at the time, \u201cYes! You are perfectly right!\u201d <\/p>\n
Musk also called German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier \u201can anti-democratic tyrant\u201d after he spoke out against foreign interference during his speech on the dissolution of the country\u2019s parliament, and called for Chancellor Olaf Scholz to resign following a deadly car-ramming attack in Magdeburg, describing him as an \u201cincompetent fool\u201d in a post on X. <\/p>\n
Germany\u2019s mainstream politicians were not happy with Musk\u2019s public support for the AfD, with the Social Democrats (SPD) co-leader Lars Klingbeil drawing comparisons between him and Russian President Vladimir Putin. <\/p>\n
Scholz even stated during his New Year\u2019s address that it was up to German citizens to decide the fate of the country, not \u201cthe owners of social media platforms.\u201d <\/p>\n
As Musk has already stirred angst in Germany over election meddling, Thursday\u2019s livestream could be perceived as another example of that. <\/p>\n
The recent heightened tensions come amid an ongoing probe by the European Commission into Musk\u2019s platform X and possible violations of its Digital Services Act (DSA). <\/p>\n
Thierry Breton, the EU\u2019s former internal market chief who oversaw the introduction of the DSA, took to X ahead of Thursday\u2019s livestream to write to Weidel \u201cas a European citizen concerned with the proper use of systemic platforms authorized to operate in the EU under the strict respect of our (EU) law (#DSA), especially to protect our democratic rules against illegal or misbehavior during election times.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cI believe it\u2019s crucial to remind you\u2026 that your counterpart (Musk) should, once again, fully respect all its obligations under our EU law,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
At the same time, the administration of Germany\u2019s lower chamber of parliament said it was examining whether Musk\u2019s live chat could amount to illegal interference in the election campaign, according to Reuters. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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