Elon Musk pens German newspaper opinion piece supporting far-right AfD party
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Billionaire Trump adviser said his ‘significant investments’ in the country justified 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 country’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper that has prompted the commentary editor to resign in protest.
![[Alice Weidel of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party speaks at the Bundestag on 16 December 2024 in Berlin.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d940fcbb2ba12a8ed173b8bc07b05993f2ada2ac/0_0_5749_3833/master/5749.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The commentary piece in German was launched online on Saturday ahead of being published on Sunday in the flagship paper of the Axel Springer media group, which also owns the US politics news site Politico. Musk uses populist and personal language to try to deny AfD’s extremist bent and the piece expands on his post on the social media platform X that he owns, on which he last week claimed that “only the AfD can save Germany”.
Translated, Musk’s piece said: “The portrayal of the AfD as rightwing extremist is clearly false, considering that Alice Weidel, the party’s leader, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka! Does that sound like Hitler to you? Please!”. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has classified the AfD at the national level as a suspected extremism case since 2021.
Shortly after the piece was published online, the editor of the opinion section, Eva Marie Kogel, used the US tech mogul’s own platform to post on X that she had submitted her resignation. “I always enjoyed heading the opinion department at Welt and Wams. Today a text by Elon Musk appeared in Welt am Sonntag. Yesterday I submitted my resignation after printing,” she posted.
