Elon Musk is not just involved in German politics. He is trying to break a political deadlock that has kept the nation’s most prominent far-right party out of government even as it has gained strength with voters.
Mr. Musk will host a live interview Thursday with Alice Weidel, who is the chancellor candidate for that party, the Alternative for Germany, known as AfD, in the country’s snap election scheduled for Feb. 23. on X, the social networking platform owned by Mr. Musk, has raised alarms and threats of legal consequences in Germany’s political class.
This means, in large part, because Mr. Musk offers the AfD a level of publicity and legitimacy it has long been denied in German public life.
The AfD rose to second place in German national polls, with the support of around a fifth of the electorate. He has won support with an unwavering anti-establishment campaign targeting the millions of immigrants and refugees who have entered the country over the past decade from the Middle East and Ukraine.
Parties with similar immigration messages elsewhere in Europe, such as Italy’s Brotherhood and Austria’s Freedom Party, have risen to federal power. But in Germany, still haunted by its Nazi past, no other party will work with the AfD. His candidates complain that they receive far less air time than other candidates on the nation’s political talk shows.
At the same time, the AfD has made inroads into language and actions that German leaders consider extreme. The party has been forced to expel members for using racist and anti-Semitic language. One of its leaders has been repeatedly punished by German courts for repeating banned Nazi slogans.
The party is under surveillance by domestic intelligence agencies. Three of its state chapters as well as its entire youth wing are classified as confirmed right-wing extremists, a designation that intelligence agencies make after extensive observation. More than 100 employees working for AfD members of parliament are also confirmed far-right, according to a public broadcaster investigation.
In a speech in 2016, with the AfD gaining steam ahead of federal elections, former chancellor Angela Merkel urged all German parties to unite against the AfD. It was, she said, not only a problem for her own Conservative party but “a challenge for all of us gathered in this house”.
The anti-AfD collective has not broken since then. Not after the party surged to the polls and won major state elections last year, and not after it tried to present a more moderate face as its chancellor candidate: Ms. Weidel, a former investment banker living in Sri Lanka. -sexual partner and their children in Switzerland.
Enter Mr. Musk, who controls a powerful media platform increasingly populated by right-wing influencers. He has become a close confidante of President-elect Donald J. Trump has also started promoting far-right candidates and parties across Europe in online posts.
In December, Mr. Musk reposted a video from Naomi Seibt, a 24-year-old German conservative social media star who has gained a large following on X and YouTube through her scathing criticism of climate scientists and her efforts to combat global warming. She is also close to the AfD and appears to have helped Mr. Musk to support the party.
“Only the AfD can save Germany,” wrote Mr. Musk, in his post, which included one of her videos.
Ms. Weidel welcomed the support. “You’re absolutely right, @elonmusk!” he wrote in response.
Mr Musk has since written an opinion piece in the German newspaper Die Welt explaining his support for the party, which he called the “last glimmer of hope” for Germany. In it, he cast the AfD not as extreme, but as a reasonable alternative to a calcified political establishment.
“The portrayal of the AfD as far-right is clearly wrong when you consider that Alice Weidel, the party leader, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka! Sound like Hitler to you? I’m coming!” he wrote.
On Thursday afternoon in Germany, Mr. Musk will go even further, playing host to Ms. Weidel in an X “Spaces” chat similar to the one he had with Mr. Trump last summer.
Mr. Musk, and many of X’s users, are fascinated with European right-wing political parties like the AfD. But in many ways the party’s positions diverge from the personal and business views of Mr. Musk — and his role as an adviser to Mr. Trump.
The AfD famously fought against building a factory in Germany for Tesla, the electric car company also run by Mr. Mask In an interview with The American Conservative this week, Ms. Weidel praised Mr. Trump, but suggested that Germans have become “slaves” to the United States, including helping America in wars for the past 30 years.
“We Germans have lived in this situation for a long time, certainly to the benefit of the US,” he said.
The European Commission said it would consider the intervention of Mr. Musk in European politics, given his enormous power through his ownership of X and his close ties, however permanent they may prove, to the incoming US president.
Europe’s centre-left political parties – including Germany’s Social Democrats – issued a joint statement calling on Brussels to use “all available legal means” to protect democracy from misinformation and foreign interference on social media.
Gérard Araud, an outspoken former French ambassador in Washington, doubts Europe’s ability to maintain its unity to withstand Mr. Mask the incumbent leaders.
“Europeans, for whom the relationship with the United States is cultural and existential, are paralyzed by the increasingly inflammatory statements of Trump and Musk,” wrote Mr. Araud in X. “They hope these are only words.”
German leaders took turns criticizing Mr. Mask and tried to ignore him. In an interview this week, Chancellor Olaf Scholz dismissed the billionaire’s attempts to influence German voters. “I don’t believe in courting the favor of Mr. Musk,” he said. When dealing with social media posts, he added in English, his rule is “Don’t feed the troll.”
German voters also seem unmoved, at least for now. Three-quarters of respondents to a German broadcaster poll said it was inappropriate for Mr Musk to comment on German politics.
But the same poll showed that the majority of respondents believed that the efforts of Mr. Musk would help the AfD in the elections.
Stephen Erlanger and Christopher F. Schuetze contributed to the report.
