‘One of the dumbest things I’ve ever read’: Elon Musk’s bizarre support for right-wing German political party
Elon Musk’s growing influence over the world’s most powerful government is perhaps being hampered by his insistence on saying dumb things.
Technology
Don't miss out on the headlines from Technology. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Comment
Let’s talk about the AfD. And, I’m afraid, Elon Musk. Again.
Acclimatise yourself to this; it will be a chunk of your life for the next four years, unless you tap out of reading the news, as Mr Musk plays a core role in the new Trump administration.
So, the AfD. Alternative für Deutschland. The Alternative for Germany. A political party so extreme that Europe’s other right-wing parties want nothing to do with it. It’s too extreme for Marine Le Pen. Too extreme for Giorgia Meloni. Too extreme for Geert Wilders.
And in Mr Musk’s mind, it’s the saviour of Germany.
I am endlessly fascinated by Mr Musk’s insistence that, on the political spectrum, he has remained stationary. That he’s stayed in the same place, while the left’s increasing extremism has warped said spectrum, pushing him further and further to the right.
It’s not Mr Musk who has changed, or who has been radicalised by spending too much time listening to Catturd and LibsofTikTok, or delving into whatever other internet rabbit holes may take his fancy. That’s the argument. It’s the spectrum itself that changed. So what used to be moderate is now considered right-wing.
Meanwhile, Mr Musk spent this year bankrolling and boosting a right-wing candidate, in America, who tried to overturn the will of his country’s voters when he lost in 2020, and has at the very least indulged in authoritarian rhetoric.
He is flirting with funding, to the tune of $US100 million, Nigel Farage’s virulently anti-immigrant right-wing party in the United Kingdom. Not the Tories, mind you. The party to the right of the Tories, who will never be a party of government, but whose extremist rhetoric has squeezed and hobbled mainstream conservatives across multiple elections.
And now he is endorsing the AfD, a German party that is pro-Russia, anti-NATO, strangely sympathetic towards the literal Nazis, and a pariah even among the other right-wing parties of Europe, who are hardly squishy moderates themselves.
What’s the expression? If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, then it probably is a duck? I may have mangled that. But at some point we are going to have to acknowledge that Mr Musk marinates in right-wing discourse, consistently boosts crazy right-wing accounts on his social media platform, endorses right-wing parties, echoes right-wing talking points, and has ultimately proven to be a reliable right-wing actor.
OK. That’s fine. But don’t pretend to be something you’re not. Do not pretend to be a sensible centrist when you’re spending your days boosting the closest thing that currently exists, in Germany, to a Nazi Party successor.
Mr Musk, in recent days, has called the AfD Germany’s “only hope”, claiming only it can “save” the country. And he’s scoffed at the inevitable backlash from people calling the AfD a party of neo-Nazis, or at least Nazi sympathisers.
Mr Musk has accused those critics of “lying”, claiming “the AfD’s policies are identical to those” of America’s Democratic Party “when Obama took office”.
“I don’t think there’s a single difference,” he wrote on social media.
Not one difference! Between the Democratic Party of 2008 and the German AfD of 2024! It is the sort of casual, so very preposterously false equivalence that makes you wonder whether Mr Musk has even the faintest idea what he’s talking about. Does he know what the AfD is? Does he know what the Democratic Party is? Does he know who Barack Obama is?
These questions seem absurd, yet he invites them by saying obviously stupid things. The perplexed questioner is not to blame.
The alternative is that he’s a blowhard billionaire who succeeded, to an impressive degree, in one field, and therefore assumes he instinctively knows everything of value about other fields too. Kind of like a quarterback being unsurpassed in reading zone coverage, and assuming he must also be an expert in throwing sliders at an MLB level.
So we have a tech boss, this week, not only spouting off about American budget legislation, and frequently getting his facts quite badly wrong – almost causing a government shutdown -but also wading into German politics with the naivety of a first-year undergrad student.
The AfD, then. We already mentioned the fact that it was kicked out of a group of other far-right European parties because it was too unpalatable a partner.
In addition to that, all parties in the current German parliament have ruled out forming a coalition with the AfD due to its extremism.
Elements of the party are officially classified as extremists by Germany’s national security services. It has been associated with neo-Nazi violence, and has been accused of co-ordinating with violent groups.
Perhaps the AfD’s most influential voice, these days, Bjorn Hocke, has been convicted of deliberately using Nazi slogans that are banned under German law.
For example, he has repeatedly used the phrase “everything for Germany”, which was also a favourite of Adolf Hitler’s notorious stormtroopers. And he has lamented Germany’s efforts to commemorate, and learn from, the Holocaust, calling for a “180-degree turn” in his country’s approach to history.
The implied subtext, here, and it lurks very, very shallowly under the surface, is that Germany is too ashamed of the Nazi era.
I’ve visited the most famous museum detailing the Nazis’ crimes in Berlin, called the Topographie des Terrors. It doesn’t engage in polemic. It provides a factual recounting of the Nazis’ actions. This is the sort of thing the AfD’s leading voices think should be scrapped.
The current iteration of the AfD is not only an abomination in the eyes of outside observers, but in those of the people who used to lead it.
Jorg Meuthen, for example. Mr Muethen led the AfD from 2015-2022. He then resigned from the party, arguing that its commitment to “democratic foundations” was dubious, that its heart was “beating very far to the right”, and that he saw “quite clear totalitarian” tendencies.
We could cite more of his comments. The point is: this party’s former leader of almost seven years now believes it is unacceptably extreme. And Mr Musk wholeheartedly supports it.
Among the AfD’s current ideas, should it win control over the German government, is the mass deportation of foreign-born German citizens. Let me repeat that: the deportation, from Germany, of German citizens.
That’s in addition, of course, to the AfD being a serial apologist for Vladimir Putin and an opponent of aid to Ukraine, which is still seeking to fend off Russia’s aggression almost three years after the invasion of its sovereign territory started.
There are two possibilities here. One: Elon Musk needs to do some research before he throws his considerable weight behind political parties. Or two: he actually has done his research, and when he examined the AfD’s extraordinary policies, far outside anything that could be considered the mainstream, he liked what he saw.
I honestly don’t know how you look at a borderline neo-Nazi party – I’m applying the “borderline” label generously, here – and say it’s indistinguishable from the relatively mild Democrats of the late 2000s.
What do we do with that assertion? It’s objectively one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read, from someone so deeply involved in politics, in more than a decade of covering global politics to a sadly obsessive extent.
And there is arguably no one more influential, in politics today, than Mr Musk. Goodness. We are in trouble, aren’t we?
Twitter: @SamClench
Originally published as ‘One of the dumbest things I’ve ever read’: Elon Musk’s bizarre support for right-wing German political party
Weird detail in Navy’s $120k job ad
The Australian Navy is advertising roles with a hefty salary and generous benefits – but there’s an interesting detail that’s sure to raise some eyebrows.
Experts warn of lithium battery risk
The common mistake that turns devices in your home, handbag or pocket into major fire hazards.