Summary
Elon Musk expressed support for Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on X, stating “Only the AfD can save Germany.”
Party leader Alice Weidel welcomed his endorsement, urging followers to review her criticisms of German politics.
The AfD, polling at 19% ahead of February’s federal election, is officially under scrutiny as an extremist group by German authorities.
Musk has previously questioned the party’s “far-right” label. Controversy surrounds the AfD, including links to a meeting discussing deportation of migrants.
Damn, so he’s just going to buy every government? I guess the first one was so cheap, he figures he can afford at least four or five more.
I miss when rich guys just bought sports teams
Or built libraries
That shows how good they were at rehabilitating their image. How did those “philanthropists” get the money to build the libraries?
I miss when they had their heads chopped off.
Didn’t his estimated wealth nearly double in the past couple years? He’s got enough money to buy all the governments at this point
Buy government, get money from government, buy another government - rinse and repeat.
It’s like those leveraged buyouts that were all the rage a few years back
Doubled in the past month. ~$220 Billion to $440 Billion or something.
Buying governments really pays off it seems.
When i hear stats like this, it makes money seem a lot less valuable
Money is completely fake, especially stock market money. Too bad we have to pretend it’s real so we can pay our landlords etc.
Basically just one of those idle clicker games at this point…
Fortunately, AfD is not in the government and possibly never will be
They have been getting traction consistently and German politics moved significantly to the right over the past years. Now supposedly progressive parties like the social democrats and greens spout stuff that five years ago was exclusive to the AfD and maybe the fringes of the Bavarian CSU.
Even if they don’t govern they get their way more and more, which helps normalising their positions more and more, which gives them more and more votes.
They had 93 seats in the German parliament as of 2017 and are now the second most popular party as of a 2023 poll.
I just got those numbers from a DDG search two minutes ago. Where did you get your information?
They would require a coalition with another big party, but all other established parties are strongly opposed to working with them, while being at least somewhat open to working with each other. From that perspective, the current voting predictions can be seen as 19% AfD vs 60% established parties (no longer counting FDP, lol). Still bad, but I think it’s reasonably likely that the other parties would keep coalising with each other and excluding the AfD.
This is a much more reasonable take than what you said earlier, as much as I’d prefer it were not true.
It’s the same take. They’re not in the government, and possibly never will be.
Seems we have different definitions of “in the government.”
Ah, I see the issue now. Parties get voted into the parliament. The government consists of a coalition of parties that together form a majority. The other parties form the opposition. Therefore, a single party can have many seats in the parliament, but still not be part of the government, if enough other parties coalise without them.
People have a real problem grasping the wealth of 500 Billion dollars. At the Median US household income it would take 12 years to make a million dollars; 1,200 years to make a hundred million dollars; 12,000 years to make a billion dollars; and 1.2 million years to make a 100 billion dollars.
His wealth is essentially limitless. It is that of a moderate sized country like Norway or Israel. When he can have an effect with 100 million dollars he could influence 5,000 elections with 500 billion dollars. And that’s not even talking about his investments in social media, PR cult of personality, and straight up vote buying in broad daylight.
I sincerely hope he and X end up banned from Europe, with a warrant out for his arrest in relation for doing this. Because America has proven unable to stop him. Another country might though if they come down hard on anyone accepting his money and as hard as they can on him without using their military.
He’s . . . he’s a CEO isnt’ he?
Didn’t you hear? He’s the new president of America, just elected by the people, with his secretary Trump by his side
Elected by billionaires, not the people
Cheap? More like insanely profitable. It’s like any good business venture: you use your successes to expand.
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I don’t understand this, while it’s obviously bad to have this situation, isn’t this the logical conclusion of the American political system?
Lobbying has been a thing for decades, isn’t the logical conclusion that we get tyrants infiltrating the government?
Clearly America has been working towards this for a long time.
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Send him to the Mushroom Kingdom
I’ve just absorbed that into my vocabulary, thank you
A visit from Luigi or you know, a short fall a long way
Hopefully musk gets too close to Putin and finds himself “accidentally” falling out of a window
Joke all you want; the moment anyone involved in US politics get defenestrated there is going to be a whole lotta crazy. The thing to remember is that regular people don’t get to go near those windows.
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Shoo him away you mean?
I concur - someone should shoo him away (or at least downregulate him).
Until that happens, companies that he owns can be boycotted in the faint hope that he understands something, but that kind of people, nah… they typically won’t.
Once this episode is over - in whatever way - I even think we might see reforms in the US electoral system. To prevent an oligarch from buying everyone a crooked president.
As for Germans, they will probably not appreciate his advise.
So, has Musk straight up admitted to being a white supremacist or has he only dropped anvil-sized hints so far?
I mean this was pretty blatant:
Do you have a link?
I’m not going to go to Twitter, but here’s a news article.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-antisemitic-comments-x-post-actual-truth/
Elon: “Why are they considered far-right? They don’t look far-right to me!”
Also Elon: ⬅️-----------------------------🙋➡️
It’s pretty much comes down to
Do they support trans people and trans rights?
Yes: Woke mind virus.
No: TAKE MY MONEY!
That’s why he’s in right wing politics now, he’s said as much. His trans daughter, who he dead names, was “stolen” from him.
I highly doubt that he ever had a real connection to his children in the first place.
Well, he did use one of his kids as a human shield repeatedly when appearing in public after Luigi crossed one of their guys off the board. That’s kind of a connection?
She said he was pretty absent ya.
As a believer in Horseshoe Theory (Just hang around a tankie long enough, you will too)
I’m really hoping these people somehow wrap around to being left… I mean that won’t happen because the Horseshoe only bends one way, but damn.
Nationalists sometimes wrap around to left.
on the same day that an anti islam afd supporter committed a terrorist attack on a christmas market even
elon sure can pick them
In case someone needs to read the story:
https://www.dw.com/en/magdeburg-christmas-market-car-ramming-death-toll-rises-to-4/live-71129061
An anti-islam, ex-muslim, pro-afd, rams a car into christmas market killing atleast 4 people so far.
I know far-right extremists aren’t the sharpest bunch or the most well-adjusted but I’m trying and failing to understand the reasoning behind ramming a christmass market as an anti-Islam action.
Maybe to increase religious tensions? He was very anti-muslim, and hated germany for enabling “islamization of europe”.
So probably in his mind, if he, being saudi, were to attack a christian related event just before the election, it would snowball into some anti-muslim winning election thus him getting what he wanted.
It seems like he had a lot of trouble with state agencies and the justice system lately. He probably snapped and just wanted to hurt people. I don’t think this was an action that was supposed to send a message beyond “the system broke me so everyone must suffer”
The site doesnt load for me but afaik it was a 50 year old doctor from saudi arabia that committed the attack. Allegedly, he was unhappy with the treatment oft refugees.
Also, it would make little sense for someone whos pro-afd to attack a Christmas market
He had a website to help women escape Saudi arabia, due to state oppression. He had issues with German state not doing much to stop the spread of islam in germany. He claimed Germany is enabling “islamization of europe”.
For context, in may 2024 there was a anti-islam rally, and a refugee tried to attack them and ended up attacking a police officer and killing him. This culminated in a historic rise of anti-islam and anti-immigrant AfD. And they won the state election in Thuringia in September.
Germany currently has federal elections in February, this attack was an attempt to incite anti-islam sentiment again just before the election.
He was pro-immigrant for ex-muslims, but anti-immigrant for muslim ones (which happen to be the majority).
I am german, so I am well aware of the entire situation here.
However, I don’t feel you can call someone pro-AfD simply because he was opposed to islam. Again, someone who was pro-AfD wouldn’t have chosen to attack a christmas market, but instead a mosque or something.
If I look through my political beliefs, there are very likely a few things in the AfD manifesto that I agree with. That doesn’t make me pro-AfD. Just as there will be a few things in the green party manifesto I agree with, which does not make me pro-green.
Calling him pro-AfD is a fairly disgusting attempt of framing imo.
When i call him pro afd, i am quoting this article: https://www.dw.com/en/magdeburg-christmas-market-car-ramming-death-toll-rises-to-4/live-71129061
Are we allowed to discuss the many many benefits that society might receive if Elon Musk were in fact assassinated?
I’d be, with extremely little resistance, willing to listen to your argument. Tread heavily if you dare.
Sure would be nice if he just dropped dead of natural causes.
Nazis welcoming another Nazi.
So Musk really is just going full Bond-esk super villain with world domination right? That’s what this is? He doesn’t have to win any election so long as he can just buy every government, which he can then ensure he owns all the money, to buy more…
See, this is why I don’t mind George Soros, a billionaire, is funding left wing causes. Too much of the rich class is disproportionately funding the right. Fight fire with fire.
Don’t the conservative bobbleheads talk about evil globalist conspiracies? Like, I found it right here for you guys! It was right in front of you the whole time!
In case you are unaware, when a racist says “globalist” they are not talking about worldwide events, the word “globalist” is a direct replacement for the word “Jew [derogatory]”.
Huh, guess I missed that dog whistle. I thought it was just the opposite of a “nationalist”, people who want to create a new world order and all that.
I guess I’m not surprised they think it’s the Jewish people doing that, but didn’t think it was exclusive to them.
It’s a bit of both. They (often) think globalism is being pushed by the jews for the sake of… jews gaining power? The reason tends to change from person to person, but the point is they often think globalism is a Jewish plot.
Bruh.
Is Germany gonna do the “Defensive” part of Defensive Democracy?
(Please ban AfD already)
Realistically, it’s not gonna happen. There’s too much cowardice in our political system for that.
I feel like I remember hearing when AfD was getting less than the 5% (or whatever it is) minimum to be granted proportional seats. I knew they had grown in popularity, but they’re at 19% now. 19???!
They should have already banned them.
Meine Oma war 11 am Kriegsende, und hat mir natürlich viel von dir Geschichte persönlich erzählt.
For fucking shame. Honestly.
Makes me quite sad :( as an German Australian. And and as any human who’s been to school in the last 40 years.
When will humanity learn that capitalism is the problem, not the foreigners…?
The problem is, that the AfD slowly drifted from very conservative to far right, and for a pretty long time, they managed to seem sufficiently “bürgerlich” not to be legally extremist. It was perfectly clear that they were nazis, even years ago, but not provable.
Add to that the two unsuccessful attempts to ban the even more right and NPD. They were afraid to fail again.
Regarding the current 19%, Germany’s political, economic, and media system somehow paint itself into a corner. The politicians are largely out of ideas, they’re all fighting about petty conflicts, there’s hardly anything being done. Not that bad laws are enacted, nothing happens. The country runs on autopilot into a very obvious wall, and the politicians fight who can sit in the pilot’s seat. It’s a simulacrum.
The economic system is eroding away. The old German model doesn’t work anymore, and the old conglomerates just switched to subsidies and rent seeking, no investment, no changes. Volkswagen wants to scale back EVs in favor of ICEs.
The media are dominated by public access outlets, who are largely afraid to be critical, because someone could call them biased, and private media spreading hate for clicks.
So, Germany is currently in a pretty bad situation and many many people see that, but don’t see anyone actually doing anything about it. But because they are bombarded with hate, they choose AfD. Absolutely stupid decision, but these people just lost every bit of trust in the system. And honestly, I blame the system.
Thanks for the lengthy reply. Pity about the public broadcasters, it’s the same here in Australia. The ABC’s funding has been cut so much that they’re rarely properly critical of the government.
I, maybe naively, hold on to hope that we’ll be able to pull out of this global slide to the right without the horrors of last century.
Frohe Weihnachten :)
When will humanity learn that capitalism is the problem, not the foreigners…?
Nooo nnnnnoooo you seee it’s the people who (look different/speak different language/family came to the country later than your ancestors did) who are causing all your problems. Don’t look at Mr. Musk who has enough money to buy countries, or Mr. Kühne whose family company gladly helped do the logistics for the holocaust, while he doesn’t even pay taxes in Germany because he doesn’t believe in taxation.
AfD is cheering while the SPD’s thugs attack and arrest Jews calling for an end to Israeli terrorism.
Not lookin’ good
I hear there are 3 or for 4 candidates for chancellor now one is a lesbian Nazi bitch living in Switzerland so no, no wehrhafte Demokratie.
All candidates are not well liked in terms of approval ratings so hooray 2025.
Elon truly is the embodiment of cancer wow. First Nigel farage and now AfD.
The rest of the world might need to bring the US to heel. We’re exporting hate and racism as a means to build fascist states around the world. Our rich are so rich and protected by the US military that they are becoming untethered from all remaining constraints about law and sovereignty for other countries.
Here be dragons.
Yeah it’s weird because you can both see Russia as an exporter of hate, but the US is on it too. I guess before late everyone will be on it.
Musk has previously questioned the party’s “far-right” label.
Shut up Musk. Your countries political center (if it existed) would count as conservative in Germany.
Our political center is far right anywhere else. Democrats are right-leaning centrists and Republicans are literal Wolfenstein Nazis
Hey now dont insult the Nazis in Wolfenstein, they at least hated the Klan. Also at least one cared about his mecha dog, Hitler also shot an Arizonan which is the correct response.
shot an Arizonan which is the correct response.
Please don’t abuse Arizonans they already abuse themselves by attempting to live on the actual surface of the Sun.
I will stop abusing Arizonans when the lot of them learn to fucken drive. If ya go to California the speed limit is 10 above posted unless there is a cop ya uncivilized curs!
Hilariously Arizonans are super afraid of the CHP. In Arizona all you hear is they’ll get you for speeding too fast. So they will drive 95 all the way to the state border and then do the exact speed limit in California. It’s also fun in reverse. I lived in Northern Arizona for a while and every time it snowed the tourists from California and Southern Arizona had no clue what to do in it. So many cars in snow banks, just so many. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person in the American Southwest that knows what to do in Sand storms, Blizzards, and Thunder storms.
I have trialed by fire for sand, snow, and thunderstorms. Though I also drive a Cherokee so snow and more specifically black ice is a pain regardless.
@MicroWave
He is just pissed because a Union just sued his Tesla Gigafactory in Grünheide, so he goes crying to the ones most likely to make the boo boo go away if given power.Meanwhile Tesla sales are down in Europe 28% despite an increase in overall EV sales.
For the month maybe, but its possible imports are gonna be higher in December for various shipping reasons. Monthly numbers aren’t always good indicators and have always been used to attack Tesla even when they were growing, not to say it might not be a preview of whats to come either. It’s around 15% YTD.
Tesla Europe sales also down 14% year-to-date.
That’s what I said.
Oh you meant it was down YTD. I was confusing you with one of the Tesla defenders who are claiming record growth.
I mean maybe they have record growth for a month or two in a very specific region, like this one really bad month in the EU but ya not happening this year. It’s gonna take a huge Q4 push to not be down globally YTD but maybe they’ll squeak a tiny tiny growth out.
