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Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk caused uproar after backing of Germany far-right party in a major newspaper ahead of key parliamentary elections in the western European country, leading to the resignation of the paper’s opinion editor in protest.
Germany is to vote in an early election on February 23 after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party government coalition collapsed last month in a dispute over how to revitalize the country’s stagnant economy.
Musk’s guest opinion piece for World on Sunday – a sister publication of POLITICS owned by the Axel Springer Group – published in German over the weekend, was the second time this month he supported the Alternative to Germanyor AfD.
“The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is the last spark of hope for this country,” Musk wrote in his translated commentary.
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He went on to say that the far-right party “can lead the country into a future in which economic prosperity, cultural integrity and technological innovation are not just wishes but reality.”
The CEO of Tesla Motors also wrote that his investment in Germany gave him the right to comment on the state of the country.
The AfD is polling strongly, but its candidate for the top job, Alice Weidel, has no realistic chance of becoming chancellor because other parties refuse to work with the far-right party.
An ally of US President-elect Donald Trump, the technology billionaire disputed the party’s public image in his opinion piece.
“The image of the AfD as a right-wing extremist is clearly false, given the fact that Alice Weidel, the party leader, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka! Does that sound like Hitler to you? Here you go!”
Musk’s comment has sparked a debate in the German media about the limits of free speech, with the paper’s own opinion editor announcing her resignation, specifically on Musk’s social media platform, X.
“I have always enjoyed leading the opinion section of WORLD and WAMS. Today an article by Elon Musk appeared in World on Sunday. I handed in my resignation yesterday after it went to print”, wrote Eva Marie Kogel.
A critical article by the future editor-in-chief of the World group, Jan Philipp Burgard, accompanied Musk’s opinion piece.
“Musk’s diagnosis is correct, but his therapeutic approach, that only the AfD can save Germany, is fatally wrong,” Burgard wrote.
In response to a request for comment from the German press office, dpthe current editor-in-chief of the World group, Ulf Poschardt and Burgard – who is due to take over on January 1 – said in a joint statement that the discussion on Musk’s piece was “very insightful. Democracy and journalism thrive on freedom of expression.”
“This will determine the compass of the ‘world’ in the future. We will develop The world even more decisive as a forum for such debates,” she wrote dp.
& copy 2024 The Canadian Press
