Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk caused uproar after backing Germany’s far-right party in a major newspaper ahead of key parliamentary elections in the Western European country, leading to the resignation of the paper’s opinion editor in protest.
Germany will vote in snap elections on Feb. 23 after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party governing coalition collapsed for a month in a dispute over how to revitalize the country’s stagnant economy.
Musk’s guest opinion piece for Welt am Sonntag —a sister publication of POLITICO owned by the Axel Springer Group — published in German over the weekend, was the second time this month he supported the Alternative for Germany, or AfD.
“The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is the spark of hope for this country,” Musk wrote in his translated comment.
He added that the far-right party “can lead the country towards a long term where economic prosperity, cultural integrity and technological innovation are mere wishes, but a reality. “
The Tesla Motors CEO also wrote that his investment in Germany gave him the right to comment on the country’s condition.
The AfD is doing well in the polls, but its top candidate, Alice Weidel, has no realistic chance of becoming a candidate because the other parties refuse to work with the far-right party.
The tech billionaire questioned the party’s public symbol in his op-ed.
“The portrayal of the AfD as right-wing extremist is clearly false, considering that Alice Weidel, the party’s leader, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka! Does that sound like Hitler to you? Please!”
Musk’s remark led to a debate in German media over the limits of loose speech, with the paper’s own opinion editor pronouncing her resignation, ostensibly on Musk’s social media platform, X.
“I have always enjoyed directing the opinion segment of WELT and WAMS. An article by Elon Musk appeared today in Welt am Sonntag. I submitted my resignation after its publication,” wrote Eva Marie Kogel.
A critical article by Welt Group editor-in-chief Jan Philipp Burgard accompanied Musk’s op-ed.
“Musk’s diagnosis is correct, but his curative approach, according to which the AfD can save Germany, is absolutely wrong,” Burgard wrote.
Responding to a request for comment from the German Press Agency, dpa, the current editor-in-chief of the Welt group, Ulf Poschardt, and Burgard — who is due to take over on Jan. 1 — said in a joint statement that the discussion over Musk’s piece was “very insightful. Democracy and journalism thrive on freedom of expression.”
“This will continue to be the direction of the ‘world’ in the future. We will even more decisively expand ‘Die Welt’ as a forum for such debates,” they wrote to dpa.
Musk has thrown himself into the 2024 US presidential election in a big way, investing millions of dollars to elect President-elect Donald Trump. Trump rewarded him after the election by naming Musk to head the new Department of Government Effectiveness, or DOGE, along with Vivek Ramaswamy.
Musk and Ramaswamy argued over the weekend on X, the social media platform Musk owns, about H-1B visas, which are granted to highly professional workers. Musk, who came to the United States on an H-1B visa, defended the use of the policy amid backlash from Laura Loomer and other Trump supporters who tightened immigration policies.
In an interview with the New York Post, Trump said he “always liked the visas,” although he tried to change the program during his first time.
“I have a lot of H-1B visas on my property. I have the H-1B. I’ve used it many times. It’s a wonderful program,” Trump told the newspaper.