Summary
Germany accused Elon Musk of trying to influence its February 2024 election by endorsing the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) through social media posts and a commentary in Welt am Sonntag.
Musk praised the AfD’s positions on regulation and taxes, calling them Germany’s saviors.
His actions sparked backlash, with opposition leader Friedrich Merz calling it unprecedented interference and SPD leader Saskia Esken vowing to resist influence from wealthy elites.
The Welt editor who published Musk’s piece resigned, while the AfD, polling second, remains shunned by mainstream parties.
Please Elon, come over and discuss election campaign strategys with us in this secluded hut in the woods, far away from the prying eyes of the public
Just like he did in the US election. I hope Germany has better safeguards than we did.
Safeguards: Harder to bribe any one single politician due to the sheer chaos that is their parliament. Either everyone gets a bribe or no one does.
sheer chaos
Because there’s more than two parties…? I don’t know if I necessarily disagree (because, you know, politics haha am i right) but the wording is curious.
kinda yeah – I’d argue that people rarely vote “tactfully” in Germany (vote for purple otherwise yellow will win), so if one party is rampant with corruption and the media reports it, then people can happily vote for another party.
Or the party itself can split off into something else, as what with happened with the BSW being an interesting faction centred around one woman (though I’ve heard she is quite progressive).
Contrast that all with the UK. The only true left-wing leader we had was Jeremy Corbyn and his own party (Labour) cannibalized him. Due to our FPTP voting system, the left still had to vote for Labour or let the Tories win.
I mean, right now people are desperate to prevent the AfD so many of us are indeed considering which of the larger parties to vote for, just for that purpose alone. So we do have that sort of phenomenon but to a lesser extent.
Calling it “chaos”, like it’s a bad thing that change in the landscape is easier than elsewhere, is still curious lol.
I’ve heard she is quite progressive
She considers herself leftist but that’s all it is.
Chaos
I meant it in a good sense. In the Chaos Computer Club sense.
considers herself leftist
I’ve heard she’s got some good anti-corruption policies, but that’s all I know. I do find it weird that there’s a whole party centred around one person.
Chaos Computer Club
Got it lol
Not every opinion Wagenknecht has voiced in the past has been bad but in general, imho, she and her people just like being against whatever the government does (they do have that in common with the AfD). Also she longs for the good old GDR days so there’s that.
I do find it weird that there’s a whole party centred around one person.
Yes.
You mean that?
Do I mean what?
You said you meant it. I wanted to be sure.
He most certainly is. What are you going to do about it?
Very funny that Brazil is basically the only country so far with the balls to have stood up to this loser
Have you seen videos from Brazil? Everyone’s either an undercover cop or an assassin about to shoot at an undercover cop, at any given moment.
Compared to that, what could muskrat threaten them with?
What did they do?
Well His stupid comments and interference aren’t against the law here
They removed all the good porn accounts. 😔
Nothing, apart from pointing it out.
Musk was free to express his opinion, the spokesperson added. “After all, freedom of opinion also covers the greatest nonsense.”
Why not elect his preferred candidate and allow him to rule by proxy?
As recently as 5 years ago I was convinced that at the end of the day this guy does more good than bad for the human race. But he is really, really putting an effort into tipping the scales, isn’t he?
I was certain he was a net negative when he called that diver pedo for mocking his unserious marketing pitch for a rescue submarine. That was the point I realized he was just a pile of cash with an ego.
For those unaware, the AfD wants one of the most export reliant countries on the planet to just leave the EU. Even among far right parties in the EU, this is exceptionally unpopular. There is probably no other party who would even consider leaving the EU after what happened with the UK. It goes to show how absolutely irrational the German far right are.
Or how stupid you’d have to be to vote for them.
Or filled with hate. Unfortunately, a family member recently joined them. Someone who made his Abitur with grade of 1.0. This is pretty much the best school-graduation possible in Germany. And he has a Master’s degree.
Highly intelligent but hates foreigners because he had a few bad experiences in his youth. That seems to be enough for some. Very very sad.
That’s how it started with the NSDAP and academics joining them.
Germany already had some kind of Wanseekonference 2.0 in November 2023 organized by (history really repeats itself) intelligent, industrious people with academic degrees (like Hans-Christian Limmer or Gernot Mörig) and an Austrian Hitler 2.0 aka Martin Sellner. The decission makers in the AfD are academics. AfD politician Gauland who described the Holocaust as of bird shit proportions in comparison to the successful 1000 year history of the German reign has a doctoral degree.
Josef Mengele earned a summa cum laude for race-morphological researches about human jaws (which is seen as pseudo science today) and had two doctoral degrees.
He put a whole block comprised of 600 women in the midst of a Typhus outbreak into the gas chamber. He did that many times more with other diseases like mingles (mostly children) or e.g. with the murder of 4000 people in Theresienstadt because of again typhus. He was nominated for the Cross of Honour for that. He was convinced that jews needed to be exterminated.
I don’t want to write about the other horrible things he did but my point is someone being able to function at an exceptional level in society doesn’t mean shit in regards to life decisions, ethics, racist or psychopath tendencies and the chance of being a good person.
I’m no academic (only Hochschulreife) and I just can’t understand that these academics are so dimwitted they want to try the whole thing again in the midst of a time already characterized by multiple crisises at a global level. Just because they think this time they’ll come out on top and only the plebs will die. See you in Nuremberg Dr. Alice Weidel.
That is an old statement after the US electing trump, TWICE
But the US doesn’t have one person = one vote. I believe Germany does.
low education + lots of propaganda
Insufficiently educated.
See the UK and Brexit.
But but but, we’re the Uber race, man!!
Their entire rationale
Right, let’s ignore Hungary… We in the EU do that, too.
So arrest him or shut up and take it like we Americans do.
or fucking drop a bomb on him, Germany. The EU should see him as a threat to democracy and a russian asset.
I’m looking forward to watching Fallout season 2, I don’t wanna live through Fallout.
Perhaps he can visit Germany, and the Germans are better marksman 🎯
Ban X (Twitter).
As much as I’d love to see this happen: For which legal reason?
The EU has strict content moderation laws that Twitter currently violates, which Elon explicitly ignores. The EU could take actions based on the same principles that Brazil did.
Dunno about legalese, but maybe along the lines of election interference?
I doubt it’s election interference when he simply posts his opinion online, if that were to get censored, as much as I’d like to censor Musk, I’d be deeply worried about what else could be censored (especially when the AfD is in power)
Afaiu the AfD are considered Nazis, which just haven’t been banned yet.
While I do have issues with censorship I see necessary limits of freedom of speech and applying that to Nazis and their allies is very much within these limits in my opinion.
Inhumanity deserves no forum nor freedom of speech.I’m not fully familiar with the AfD but if they were Nazis they’d already be illegal (being a Nazi is illegal in Germany and a few other countries). From what I know they’re just your usual far-right populist pro-russian anti-eu party, which sadly isn’t enough to stop them legally.
They are Nazis, plain and simple. Unfortunately, it’s not quite that easy banning an entire political party, even if they’re considered actively hostile towards the constitution. Well. I say “unfortunately” but it should of course be difficult. Democracy isn’t easy.
So maybe not the whole of AfD can be called Nazi, but at least one of their leaders according to https://www-hessenschau-de.translate.goog/politik/demonstranten-duerfen-afd-politiker-bjoern-hoecke-als-nazi-bezeichnen-v1,ermittlungen-hoecke-ist-ein-nazi-eingesellt-100.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=de&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp:
The Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office has dropped proceedings against a demonstrator who called Björn Höcke a “Nazi” during anti-AfD protests. This was not a criminal insult, but a “value judgment based on facts,” according to the investigators.
The due process to ban the AfD was already started, but won’t conclude before the election
Go Israeli on him
Slowly feels more and more like Cyberpunk 2077.
No shit
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I wonder if he’ll throw lotteries there too
Nah, this is not allowed in working democracies.
Duh
Boy, I bet that Welt editor felt great paying for airing Elon’s grievances with her job. FAFO, you useful idiot.
It read more to me as if she resigned in protest
I’m thinking they edited the article, because it read differently earlier. The way it’s worded now makes me agree with you.
