Elon Musk urged Germans to vote for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in an upcoming national election during a broadcast he hosted with the party's leader on his social media platform on Thursday.
Musk last year used X and his vast wealth to help Republican candidate Donald Trump win the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election. Now he is becoming vocal in his support for far-right and anti-establishment parties in Europe ahead of Germany's Feb. 23 national election.
The world's richest man has shown particular interest in Germany, Europe's economic powerhouse, where he opened Tesla's first European plant in 2022.
Musk introduced the AfD's chancellor candidate Alice Weidel, whose party is second in polls but has almost no chance of forming a government due to other parties' refusal to work with it, as "the leading candidate to run Germany."
In a conversation punctured by giggles from both parties, the two agreed that Germany was hamstrung by a "crazy" energy policy, excessive bureaucracy and uncontrolled immigration.
"People really need to get behind AfD, otherwise things are going to get very, very much worse in Germany," he said. "I think Alice Weidel is a very reasonable person. Nothing outrageous is being proposed."
Musk was doubling down on his endorsement last month of the AfD, an anti-immigration, anti-Islamic party labeled as right-wing-extremist by German security services, which has caused consternation in Berlin.
Speaking in fluent English, Weidel expressed gratitude for Musk's support, saying that the opportunity to speak with Musk was the first time in 10 years that she had been allowed a platform to say her piece without interruption from a media world that, she said, was biased against her.
"People love to censor things they don't agree with," Musk agreed after the two compared the media and German politicians' treatment of the AfD to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's treatment of pro-Jewish voices in the 1930s.
Leaders across Europe have expressed alarm over Musk's political activities. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez accused Musk of undermining democracy, without directly naming him, while France's foreign minister urged the EU to use its laws more robustly to guard against outside interference.
Musk, who describes himself as a libertarian, has called German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier a "tyrant" for criticising the AfD and called on Chancellor Olaf Scholz to resign after a deadly car attack on a German Christmas market. Both men belong to the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD).
Last August Musk held a similar talk with Trump, who has since tasked the entrepreneur with leading a drive to make U.S. government more efficient.
In his chat with Weidel, Musk recalled the bureaucratic hurdles he had to go through to open the German Tesla plant.
"I think it was 25,000 pages was our permit. And it had to be all printed on paper," Musk said. "And then there has to be many, many copies made. So it literally was a truck of paper."
On energy, Musk backed Germany's renewable ambitions but agreed with Weidel that turning off the nuclear power plants was a bad idea.
"When I saw that Germany was turning off the power plants after being cut off from gas supplies from Russia, I thought ... this is one of the craziest things I've ever seen," he said.
© Thomson Reuters 2025.
19 Comments
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Underworld
And the censor in chief is Musk, himself. If he doesn't agree with you, he'll take your post down, remove your blue checkmark, or ban your account.
Hypocrisy.
Underworld
Musk should really look up the Dunning-Kruger effect. Because he is a perfect example of it. He thinks he understands politics, but he doesn't.
plasticmonkey
Musk is a hypocritical fool who’s high on his own supply.
lincolnman
King Elon the Autistic...thinks he can interfere in the internal affairs of any country...
This guy has a bigger narcissism complex than Trump....which just means one will turn on the other - probably before the inauguration...
King Elon will soon get the "Mike Pence" treatment...
Some dude
Maybe he realised that his attempts to stir up a hornet's nest in the UK were a complete failure, so he's turned back to Germany.
If that fails, he'll just pick another country and try that.
(Apparently he also floated the idea of buying Liverpool FC (the soccer team, for our American friends), which is about the worst choice he could have made. Liverpool doesn't take kindly to bad journalism; one of the most popular UK newspapers is basically persona non grata across the entire city).
wallace
Musk with his wealth and power has become a megalomaniac and does not know you earn influence not buying it.
Liverpool told him what he could do with his idea of buying Liverpool FC.
lincolnman
Musk should stay out if other country's politics (ours too) and just do the job Trump gave to him....
"MAGA DEI King" - bringing in as many brown foreign tech workers as he can to replace white US workers...
Heck, that's what MAGA-nation wanted, isn't it?
Bad Haircut
Don't blame Elon, guys. It's the social and economic havoc that leftist governments have been wreaking on countries right across the West that have prompted the rise of the AfD and other parties like it.
Some dude
Don't blame Elon, guys. It's the social and economic havoc that leftist governments have been wreaking on countries right across the West that have prompted the rise of the AfD and other parties like it.
Can't speak for the rest of Europe, but the "social and economic havoc" in the UK is exactly why a leftist government was just voted in, as it was the conservatives whose 14 years of rule had left the country in a pretty horrific state.
Bad Haircut
The Conservatives were behaving like a left-wing Blairite government, which is why the country's in such a mess. Labour only secured around 30% of the vote, so there's no way anyone can claim it was a resounding victory and embrace of Labour's policies that got them into government, just a quirk of the UK's electoral system. Under Labour, the UK is getting even worse now than when Labour-lite was running it.
Zaphod
The AdF is not "far right", it is a common-sense conservative party. Their platform corresponds that of the mainstream parties 30, or even 20 years ago. This mislabelling by the legacy media is getting tiring.
Some dude
The Conservatives were behaving like a left-wing Blairite government,
Firstly, stop using words you don't understand. Blair won the election and spent some 11 years as PM because he brought Labour nearer to the centre. He alienated the more left-wing elements of the party in doing so, but he more than offset that by the gains elsewhere. Outside of his bizarre devotion to Bush and his idiotic willingness to get involved in Iraq, he will go down as one of the better modern PMs. There was very little about him that was "left wing", other than in relative terms to the conservatives. Stop embarrassing yourself by trying to sound intelligent on a topic you clearly know nothing about.
As for the tories, it wasn't their politics per se that led to their downfall, it was their incompetence. And their complete inability to read the room. They had parties during the very lockdown periods in which they ordered people to stay at home, and while regular people weren't allowed to visit their relatives in hospital, the Hooray Henries in the conservative government were having the time of their lives and boasting about getting away with it.
Under Labour, the UK is getting even worse now than when Labour-lite was running it.
I assume you're one of those people who thinks 14 years of mismanagement can be fixed overnight. This kind of short term, selfish thinking is typical of modern politics, and also a reason why nothing ever gets done.
Bad Haircut
Some dudeToday 11:18 am JST
Oh, please. Blair and co were dragging Labour back from far-left to centre-left combined with fusion of corporate and bureaucratic state that helped to fuel the growth of a few super-rich while entrenching a leftist bureaucracy that's now extremely difficult to dislodge.
The Tories' downfall was a combination of politics, incompetence and pure hubris. Their lockdown parties were evidence they knew the virus's harm was being grossly exaggerated yet they pursued authoritarian lockdowns, masking and the like with gusto while ignoring truly safe and effective measures that were emerging. And their immigration and economic mismanagement were shocking. Liz Truss was trying to put things right but was white-anted by crooks in her own party and an unelected establishment that was hell-bent on resisting change. She's been quite candid in long-form interviews over the last couple of years about this, but was blocked and sabotaged from doing anything to combat the problems during her disappointingly brief tenure as PM.
Nice try, but no doughnut. Of course it'll take years to even start undoing the damage. But Starmer is doing his bit to make it even worse. On top of economic incompetence, is lot have been doubling down on trying to cover up the pure evil of the grooming gangs, which under Labour and the Conservatives alike were running rampant because governments and the public service put political correctness above fighting crime. Purely selfish, backside-covering if ever you've seen it.
Germany has been little different, pursuing net-zero madness and poorly controlled immigration under both nominally right-wing government under Merkel and unapologetic left-wing government under Scholz et al. Germans are finally losing patience and fighting back through the ballot box. too bad if you don't like it, but it's policies you tend to support that caused the problems in the first place. Deal with it.
Daisaku
Not according to its history and charter. Opposed by the majority of Germans.
Burgerland
"...urged the EU to use its laws more robustly to guard against outside interference."
Amusing since the EU heavyweights are still fresh from interfering in Georgian and Romanian elections. The usual hypocrisy.
lincolnmanToday 08:50 am JST......"King Elon the Autistic
No need to be nasty and disparage autism.
thinks he can interfere in the internal affairs of any country...
Ah, the good ole time worn US tradition.
Sven Asai
The AfD is of course far away from being far-right, being only a step by step grown conservative replacement for the former conservative CDU party which very heavily shifted to center-left and green under former Merkel government and a big coalition with the social democrats SPD. There are indeed a few real far-right parties, but they are very very small and all below or around 0.5% only.
Burgerland
ROFL..."
Thanks for agreeing:)
He himself publicly stated he has Asperger's so not really a secret.
Bad Haircut
So what if he is? Do you have a problem with that?
theFu
Musk isn't German. He needs to stay away from their politics.
Musk isn't British either. He needs to stay away from their politics.
Musk is technically a citizen of South Africa, Canada and the USA, so those are the only elections he should be stating his stance about.