Musk plans discussion with German far-right leader on X

 

Musk plans discussion with German far-right leader on X

 

The live chat with the AfD’s chancellor candidate is proposed as Germany’s political leaders accuse the tech billionaire of election interference.

 

January 2, 2025 2:42 pm CET

By Pauline von Pezold

https://www.politico.eu/article/elon-musk-discussion-german-far-right-leader-alice-weidel-x/

 

Elon Musk is planning a live discussion with Alice Weidel, the chancellor candidate for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, ahead of Germany’s snap election on Feb. 23, according to a spokesperson for the party leader.

 

The chat, an audio livestream set to take place on Musk’s platform X, comes after the tech billionaire endorsed the AfD, first in an online post and later in an opinion piece in the Welt am Sonntag newspaper in which he called the party the “last spark of hope” for Germany, sparking an outraged reaction from German mainstream political leaders.

 

The discussion on X will take place “very soon,” said Daniel Tapp, a spokesperson for AfD leader Weidel. While no date has been set, the talk would “definitely” take place before the election, he added.

 

Musk’s AfD endorsements have prompted a major backlash in Germany, with mainstream political leaders arguing they amount to election interference. Given Musk’s ties to United States President-elect Donald Trump, one opponent suggested that interference may be coming from the incoming American administration.

 

The German government must clarify “whether the repeated disrespect, defamation and interference in the election campaign were also expressed in the name of the new U.S. government,” Rolf Mützenich, a prominent politician from Germany’s Social Democratic Party, told German outlet Spiegel.

 

A spokesperson for the German government also accused Musk of “trying to influence the federal election,” adding: “Freedom of opinion also covers the greatest nonsense.”

 

While Musk has offered repeated endorsements of the AfD, Trump’s second-in-command, Vice President-elect JD Vance, said Thursday that he would not endorse a party in the upcoming German election.

 

“I’m not endorsing a party in the German elections, as it’s not my country and we hope to have good relations with all Germans,” Vance wrote in a post on X. But despite insisting on his neutrality, the vice president-elect added that Musk’s opinion piece was “interesting” and defended the AfD against what he described as American media’s “slanders” of the party as “Nazi-lite.”

 

It’s unclear whether Musk’s endorsement of the AfD will help the party’s election chances. The AfD is currently polling in second place at 19 percent. Germany’s conservative alliance is in first with 30 percent, putting Friedrich Merz, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union, in pole position to become the next chancellor.

 

Musk’s support for the AfD raises questions about how Trump will work with Germany’s next likely-conservative-led government. In his first term as president, Trump displayed a particular antipathy toward Germany and the chancellor at the time, Angela Merkel.

 

Musk conducted a similar live discussion using the X streaming feature Spaces with Trump in August, though the unstructured conversation was hampered by an array of technical difficulties that proved a major embarrassment to the platform.

 

This story has been updated. Giselle Ruhiyyih Ewing contributed reporting.