Elon Musk has been accused by the German government of openly backing the far-right Alternative für Deutschland in the upcoming federal election, which is accused of attempting to interfere in the upcoming election. Examples of troubling external influence include Musk’s social media posts and a guest editorial for the party’s magazine, Christiane Hoffmann, a government spokesperson, told the news agency. According to Hoffmann, it’s “actually the case that Elon Musk wants to influence the federal election,” as she acknowledges the freedom of opinion should not excuse the dissemination of “nonsense.”
Musk has ratcheted up his involvement in German politics: known for his unfiltered talking points on political issues worldwide, he’s giving even more attention to the politics of Germany. He tweeted in a recent X post that ‘German can only be saved by the AfD’ and shared articles criticising mainstream candidate Friedrich Merz and praising Argentina’s President Javier Milei. In his editorial in the broadsheet Welt am Sonntag, he said Germany is on the brink of economic and cultural collapse, praising AfD’s economic ideas and playing down the suggestion it is extremist. But the editorial prompted Eva Marie Kogel, the paper’s opinion editor, to resign in protest.
Musk’s actions were condemned by politicians from Germany’s whole political landscape. Merz compared the intervention to no other case in Western democratic history and said such an action was ‘intrusive and presumptuous,’ while health minister Karl Lauterbach called it ‘undignified and highly problematic.’
After dissolving parliament ahead of February’s election, Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier also expressed concerns about foreign influence including attempts in recent days on X, a Twitter competitor, to sway public opinion. Scholz’s SPD government is also dealing with an increasingly unpopular proposition, and Musk’s endorsements come as it struggles economically.
