Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk is outraged after supporting Germany’s far-right party in a primary newspaper ahead of key parliamentary elections in the Western European country, leading to the resignation of the newspaper’s opinion editor in a gesture of protest.
Germany is due to vote in a snap election on Feb. 23 after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party government coalition collapsed a month in a standoff over how to revitalize the country’s stagnating economy.
Musk’s op-ed for Welt am Sonntag, a sister publication of POLITICO owned by the Axel Springer Group, was published in German over the weekend, the second time this month he has supported Alternative for Germany, or the AfD.
“The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is the spark of hope for this country,” Musk wrote in his translated comment.
He added that the far-right party “can lead the country towards a long term where economic prosperity, cultural integrity and technological innovation are mere wishes, but a reality. “
The CEO of Tesla Motors wrote that his investment in Germany gave him the right to comment on the situation in 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.
The best friend of U. S. President-elect Donald Trump, the tech billionaire who is the party’s public symbol in his op-ed.
“The description of AfD as right-wing extremist is obviously false, given that Alice Weidel, the party leader, has a same-sex spouse from Sri Lanka! Does this remind you of Hitler? Please!”
Musk’s comment sparked a debate in the German media about the limits of freedom of expression, and the newspaper’s own opinion editor announced her resignation, adding on Musk’s social media platform, X.
“I always enjoyed leading the opinion section of WELT and WAMS. Today an article by Elon Musk appeared in Welt am Sonntag. I handed in my resignation yesterday after it went to print,” Eva Marie Kogel wrote.
A critical article written by Welt Group editor-in-chief Jan Philipp Burgard accompanied Musk’s op-ed.
“Musk’s diagnosis is correct, but his curative approach, according to which the AfD can save Germany, is absolutely wrong,” Burgard wrote.
In response to a request for comment from German news firm dpa, current Welt Group editor-in-chief Ulf Poschardt y Burgard, who will take up his role on Jan. 1, said in a statement that the discussion of Musk’s article was “very informative. “”Democracy and journalism thrive on freedom of expression.
“This will continue to shape the direction of the ‘world’ in the future. We will even more decisively expand Die Welt as a forum for such debates,” they wrote to dpa.