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Friedrich Merz, the man tipped to become Germany’s next prime minister, has criticized Elon Musk for his opinion piece praising the far-right German Alternative, calling it “arrogant and arrogant”.
“I don’t remember a similar case of meddling in the election campaign of a friendly country in the history of western democracy,” Merz told the Funke news team on Sunday.
Merz’s comments come after the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag published an article describing Musk One for Germany (AfD) as the “last glimmer of hope” for Germany.
This document has been widely criticized by Parliamentarians across the political spectrum as a clear example of interference in Germany’s democratic processes two months before the elections.
The polls have the AfD in second place behind Merz’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) in third.
Germany’s main parties lash out at the AfD, which calls for the deportation of immigrants and wants Germany to leave the EU. Large sections of the party have been identified as extremists by German domestic intelligence and are under surveillance.
Saskia Esken, co-leader of the SPD, strongly criticized Musk the brute. “Our democracy is self-defending, and it is not for sale,” he told Reuters.
“Anyone who tries to influence our elections from outside, anyone who supports an anti-democratic party with bad practices like AfD. . . we should expect strong opposition from us,” he said.
Matthias Miersch, Secretary General of the SPD, also attacked Axel Springer, the media organization that owns Welt am Sonntag., saying it was “shameful and dangerous” that the company had given Musk a platform to make the noise. the AfD.
Andreas Audretsch, a senior Green MP who is leading the party’s election campaign, also criticized Musk’s headline.
“It destroys our democracy when Herr Musk, the Chinese state or Moscow’s troll factories destroy our democratic discourse,” he said.
Welt opinion editor Eva Marie Kogel announced over the weekend that she was resigning, in a sign of anger over the decision to publish Musk’s article that was produced in the paper’s newsroom.
“Journalism lives on independence and integrity, Die Welt lives on its reputation,” said Mika Beuster, head of the DJV, the German journalists’ association. All those things are being thrown, with great noise, into the dustbin.
In his article, Musk, a close adviser to US president-elect Donald Trump and a friend of Axel Springer chief executive Mathias Döpfnerhe applauded the AfD’s policies to deregulate markets, cut taxes and reduce corruption, as well as its opposition to immigration.
He also dismissed the idea that the party was “excessive”, noting that its co-leader, Alice Weidel, has a same-sex relationship with a Sri Lankan woman. “Does that sound like Hitler to you? Please!” he wrote.
Merz said Musk “overlooked” several important points in his article, saying he would not be able to build his Tesla factory in the eastern German state of Brandenburg and the AfD. It was the far-right party that said, “put up the strongest opposition to the plant”.
He also noted that the withdrawal of any form of Brexit from the EU, as advocated by the AfD, would cause a serious harm to the entire German economy, “not just the car industry”.
“You can easily identify these relationships as long as you don’t get all your information on social media,” Merz said.
The AfD is the latest European hard-right party to win Musk’s support.
Nigel Farage recently hinted that Musk could donate to Reform UK, telling the BBC that his party is in “ongoing discussions” with the tech mogul after the pair met at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.
Musk also intervened in the row between Farage and Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch, raising awareness of Badenoch’s tweets in which he claimed Reform UK had falsified its membership numbers.
Earlier this year, Musk praised Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, describing her as “more beautiful on the inside than she is on the outside” and “genuine, honest and thoughtful “. He responded by praising her “valuable intelligence”.
Insiders at Axel Springer, which also owns Politico, denied that, by publishing Musk’s article, they were giving a platform to the billionaire and the far right.
“He owns Twitter and with one tweet he can reach 200 million people,” said another. “Who is Welt to give him a platform? It’s a platform. It is better to publish this on our forum where we can defend it and put it aside with our opinion. “
