The tech entrepreneur and close adviser to Donald Trump Elon Musk has taken a stunning new public step in his support for the far-right German political party Alternative for Germany (AfD), publishing a supportive guest opinion piece for the country’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper that has prompted the commentary editor to resign in protest.
The commentary piece in German was launched online on Saturday ahead of being published on Sunday in the flagship paper of the Axel Springer media group, which also owns the US politics news site Politico.
Musk uses populist and personal language to try to deny AfD’s extremist bent and the piece expands on his post on the social media platform X that he owns, on which he last week claimed that “only the AfD can save Germany”.
To anyone confused: Musk may live in the US, but like all the uber-wealthy, he doesn’t consider himself a citizen of anywhere because he can jump in his private jet and fly anywhere on a whim without needing to have his passport checked by anyone.
These people do not live in the same world as us, and the fact that Musk is knee-deep in numerous countries politics is ample fucking evidence of such. He will support any group that benefits him in the short-term, that’s all.
He believes that, as one of the Owners, it’s his prerogative to appoint the viceroys who will rule on his behalf. And that he owns enough of Germany to veto any reluctance they might have of having another Nazi government.
Good luck on him trying that. I still strongly believe that things are very different here…
Well, yeah, things are different in Germany than in the States. For one thing, there’s proportional representation.
But, and I know this is unlikely, this time could be different. Trump actually got the popular vote. Not by much, but he did get it. It is physically possible for it to happen in Germany, and Europe is not ready for it.
Basically, people would be voting for Musk lol. I mean haven’t you heard that he is the genius who designed all of spaceX’s rockets and all of tesla’s cars and factories? Who wouldn’t want somebody like that running their government? (with tremendous amounts of sarcasm)
I mean I like to think that Europeans are less gullible than Americans. IDK, are they less gullible than Americans? 'Cause if not, then yeah, it could happen. Barely.
Yes, you won’t get another iteration of the Nazi party directly. Like there won’t be swastikas and eagles and Jew-hatred. But you could absolutely get fascism. Germany supported the genocide in Israel, which is apparently a-ok because it’s not Jews who are suffering. As long as you have an Other to hate and fear, and enough uneducated/brainwashed people to rally behind you, you can fash it up. Chaplin moustache notwithstanding.
No respectable newspaper would platform a foreign billionaire trying to meddle in an election. The fact that the owners pushed this through, overruling their own staff, should be a clear sign to everyone: billionaires buy up news organizations to influence the population and undermine democracy. Even if the individual journalists have the utmost integrity, they will just get strong armed by upper management. The same thing happened with Bezos and the Washington Post.
Note that political meddling and unscrupelous behaviour has always been the hallmark of the Axel-Springer Media.
They have successfully motivated the murder of the student activist Rudi Dutschke in the 60s by a Neonazi terrorist.
In 2011 they have cheered themselves for having pushed the then president of Germany Christian Wulff (it is a ceremonial role, the head of the executive is the chancellor) with a smear campaign based on lies and fabrications.
They hold the absolute majority of reprimands for violations of journalistic standards by the publishers organization ethics board Presserat.
The former editor in chief of the Bild Zeitung Julian Reichelt had to be kicked out a few years back for sexual harassment and coercion of multiple women employees. But only after the Company tried to keep it under covers and pressured another publisher to not publish their investigative research in Germany, so US media had to publish it first.
They were always like this and they will always be like this. Axel-Springer is also the main pro US and pro Israel voice in Germanys media landscape. It should be telling everyone where things are headed that they switched now from supporting the far right neoliberal FDP to the fascist AfD.
allies should have bombed the island of Föhr back then.
anyone remember how friede (head of the nazi news) transferred 1 billion € to one of her employees (döpfner) to start a TV station (BILD TV)? no taxes were paid because Friede is best friends with Angela Merkel. ofcourse BILD TV failed terribly but funds are used for propaganda.
anyway, if you ask the people that saw Friede Springer on Föhr grow up after WW2 might be able to tell you a story about how they let the refugees starve in the 50s. but officially everyone is just so scared of Friede Springer you’ll never read about their murders.
After the war pretty much all refugees in Schleswig-Holstein were starving, ration cards were not sufficient for anyone and refugees were in a worse situation to self-supply, housing was more than scarce, the refugee to native ratio was 3:4, multiple families sharing apartments, a family to a room. To this day many smaller cities are dominated by our version of commie blocks built back then things would’ve gotten very ugly without a massive building programme.
Dunno about the situation on Föhr in particular, and I don’t doubt that Friede is an assclown, but you gotta be more specific. Did she, at the tender age of eight, e.g. prevent people from rummaging through already harvested fields to see what they can find? Demand payment for wool caught on fences?
Did we even distribute refugees to the islands back then? Doesn’t really sound sensible or practical, there wasn’t really anything more than subsistence farming going on anywhere on the Frisian islands and, short of the addition of tourism, still isn’t. Industry on Föhr is like yes they have an electrician, a car mechanic, and a carpenter.
just saying the farmers i know all tell the same tale. refugees in SH had little to no food, but the farmers werent mistreating the people like the people of föhr did. and that her parents right? and thats that values of life she grew up with. and that explains a lot about her hate media outlet. so i just ask for the island of föhr to be removed. sylt needs sand. lets make things right.
It seems bizarre to me that the prevailing assumption is that Musk’s interests align with those of the working class.
As in, why TF would anyone who is not a billionaire want a billionaire to restructure government?
His blunder in Sweden should tell everyone clearly where he stands on workers rights.
I don’t think people care. I don’t get why people keep going against their own interests, and it’s the only thing I can think of, or they think the rich deserve their wealth.
People in Sweden definitely care. Multiple industries striked against tesla.
In Australia there’s a phrase “temporarily embarrassed millionaires”.
We have a two party system, one more progressive and one more conservative.
My parents are retired. They’re not wealthy and are living a meager existence on a government pension. They will always vote conservative, despite their best bet at better public services and social security on offer from the progressive party.
The reason is, they feel like they ought to be wealthy or at least they want to act like they’re wealthy. They feel as though they are more closely aligned with the views of wealthy people than they are with the views of poor people. They feel as though they belong to a class of wealthy people, it’s just that through a cruel twist of fate they don’t have any money.
There’s also the moral / ethical perspective that is ultimately meaningless but resonates with a lot of voters. For example, banning naughty books from schools. Obviously kids will access much naughtier content in other ways, but “protecting the kids from gays” is very communicable to low information voters.
Hitler did horrible things the old way, with killing and hotting. In many ways, these billionaires are worse. Not wanting to defend him, but Hitler didn’t try to meddle with all governments around the world and enslave the whole working class. If people like Elmo get his way, slavery would be back on the menu.
I think it was more that he didn’t have the means. Propaganda was much harder before the Internet and social media.
Billionaire Trump adviser said his ‘significant investments’ in the country justified his wading into German politics
At least we agree: his wealth is everyone’s problem. The difference is that I think it’s time we do something about it.
