Musk expresses support for far-right party AfD in Germany's election

Berlin: Elon Musk, the world's richest man and a close adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, on Friday endorsed Germany's far-right party, a group with ties to neo-Nazis whose youth wing has been classified as "confirmed extremist" by German domestic intelligence.

"Only the AfD can save Germany," Musk posted to the social platform X, referring to the anti-immigrant party, the Alternative for Germany, by its German initials.

In doing so, he is wading into German politics at a time of turmoil. The German government recently collapsed, leading to early elections planned for next year.

Musk's post was in response to an English-language video by a 24-year-old German far-right influencer, Naomi Seibt. She harshly criticised Friedrich Merz, whom polls show leading the race, for dismissing a rival's suggestion that Germany look to Musk and another firebrand, President Javier Milei of Argentina, for ideas about reforming the country.

Seibt also criticized Merz for ruling out joining any coalition with the AfD. The ethnonationalist and Islamophobic message of the once-fringe party has proved to be a strong vote-getter at the local level, especially in the more economically disadvantaged former East Germany.

Musk's post, which had more than 25 million views in roughly 10 hours, comes as Germany begins what promises to be an aggressive election campaign. The country will have an early election on Feb. 23 after Chancellor Olaf Scholz's three-party coalition collapsed in November.

Like all the mainstream German parties, Merz's center-right Christian Democratic Union has ruled out working with the AfD, which Scholz and others have called a threat to German democracy.

News that members of the AfD attended a secret meeting with Austrian extreme-right provocateur Martin Sellner, who has admitted to once being a member of a neo-Nazi group and has called for deporting migrants en masse, led to large protests early this year. Then, starting in May, a leading light of the party was twice given a hefty fine for using Nazi-era slogans during campaign stops.

Last month in the eastern state of Saxony, police arrested eight people suspected of being members of what they called a right-wing extremist terrorist organization, which they said had been plotting to overthrow the government. Three of the eight were AfD members; one was a local elected official.

The online endorsement from Musk garnered a quick response from Alice Weidel, the AfD's top candidate. "Yes! You are perfectly right," she posted just an hour after Musk's post went up.

Musk has long made heavy use of X, which he bought in 2022, to express his views on politics in the United States and abroad.

In Britain, he has thrown his weight behind another insurgent, anti-immigrant party, Reform U.K., which is led by longtime political disrupter Nigel Farage. He met Monday with Farage and the party's new treasurer, Nick Candy, at Trump's Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, to discuss the possibility of a donation by Musk to Reform U.K.

Musk has yet to write Farage a check, and lawmakers in Britain are calling on the government to tighten campaign finance laws to restrict foreign donations. But he has left little doubt of his endorsement.

When Farage posted a photo of himself with Candy and Musk posing in front of a portrait of a younger Trump, along with the line "Britain needs Reform," Musk replied, "Absolutely."

He also has picked repeated fights online with Britain's Labour government, accusing it of using police-state tactics in going after people who used his X platform to spread misinformation after anti-immigrant riots broke out across Britain last summer, following a mass stabbing at a dance studio.

Musk claimed that "civil war" was inevitable in Britain. After Prime Minister Keir Starmer activated an emergency plan to relieve pressure on overcrowded jails, under which defendants can be held longer in cells until space opens in prisons, Musk posted, "The U.K. is turning into a police state."

In Germany, Christian Lindner, leader of the small, pro-business Free Democratic Party, suggested this month that the country should look toward Musk and Milei when thinking about disruption and reform.

In her crudely edited video message on X, Seibt criticized Merz's opposition to that idea as well as his repeated vow not to work with the AfD.

The AfD is polling at 19%, and its leaders appeared ready to make the most of the post, apparently hoping it could help attract more voters and serve as a jumping-off point for communications with the Trump White House.

Some hours after her initial post, Weidel recorded a video addressing Musk's post. "The Alternative for Germany is indeed the only alternative for our country; our very last option," she said.

On Friday, Lindner also addressed Musk over X: "Elon, I've initiated a policy debate inspired by ideas from you and Milei," he said, explaining why Musk should not endorse the AfD. "Don't rush to conclusions from afar."