{"id":146945,"date":"2024-12-29T17:49:41","date_gmt":"2024-12-30T00:49:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=146945"},"modified":"2024-12-29T17:49:41","modified_gmt":"2024-12-30T00:49:41","slug":"elon-musk-pens-german-newspaper-opinion-piece-supporting-far-right-afd-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2024\/12\/29\/elon-musk-pens-german-newspaper-opinion-piece-supporting-far-right-afd-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk pens German newspaper opinion piece supporting far-right AfD party"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy The Guardian (UK)<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n


Billionaire Trump adviser said his \u2018significant investments\u2019 in the country justify his wading into German politics<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tech entrepreneur and close adviser to Donald Trump Elon Musk<\/a> has taken a stunning new public step in his support for the far-right German<\/a> political party Alternative for Germany (AfD), publishing a supportive guest opinion piece for the country\u2019s Welt am Sonntag newspaper that has prompted the commentary editor to resign in protest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The commentary piece in German was launched online on Saturday before being published on Sunday in the flagship paper of the Axel Springer media group, which also owns the US politics news site Politico.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musk uses populist and personal language to try to deny AfD\u2019s extremist bent, and the essay expands on his post on his social media platform, X, on which he last week claimed that only the AfD can save Germany\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Translated, Musk\u2019s piece said: The portrayal of the AfD as rightwing extremist is clearly false, considering that Alice Weidel, the party\u2019s leader, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka! Does that sound like Hitler to you? Please!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Germany\u2019s domestic intelligence agency has classified the AfD at the national level as a suspected extremism case since 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly after the piece was published online, the editor of the opinion section, Eva Marie Kogel, used the US tech mogul\u2019s own platform to post<\/a> on X that she had submitted her resignation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I always enjoyed heading the opinion department at Welt and Wams. Today a text by Elon Musk<\/a> appeared in Welt am Sonntag. Yesterday I submitted my resignation after printing,\u201d she posted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Woman<\/a>
Alice Weidel of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party speaks at the Bundestag on 16 December 2024 in Berlin. Photograph: Maja Hitij\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

She included a link to the Musk commentary article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AfD has a strong anti-immigration stance and, like incoming president Donald Trump in relation to the US, is calling for mass deportations from Germany. Earlier in December, Musk not only posted in favor of AfD but the party\u2019s hard line on immigration appeared to resonate with the incoming US vice-president, JD Vance, MSNBC reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior Welt Group figures<\/a> weighed in on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democracy and journalism thrive on freedom of expression. This includes dealing with polarising positions and classifying them journalistically,\u201d the newspaper\u2019s editor-in-chief designate, Jan Philipp Burgard, and Ulf Poschardt, who takes over as publisher on 1 January, told Reuters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They said discussion about Musk\u2019s piece, which had about 340 comments several hours after it was published, was very revealing\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Underneath Musk\u2019s commentary, the newspaper published a response by Burgard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musk\u2019s diagnosis is correct, but his therapeutic approach, that only the AfD can save Germany, is fatally false,\u201d he wrote, referencing the AfD\u2019s desire to leave the European Union and seek rapprochement with Russia as well as appease China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musk and Weidel both later posted<\/a> a link to the article on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AfD backing from Musk, who also defended his right to weigh in on German politics due to his significant investments\u201d, comes as Germans are set to vote on 23 February after a coalition government led by the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, collapsed<\/a> late this fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AfD is running second in opinion polls and might be able to thwart either a centre-right or centre-left majority, but Germany\u2019s mainstream, more centrist parties have pledged to shun any support from the AfD at the national level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy The Guardian (UK) Billionaire Trump adviser said his \u2018significant investments\u2019 in the country justify his wading into German politics 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}