Summary

Elon Musk expressed support for Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on X, stating “Only the AfD can save Germany.”

Party leader Alice Weidel welcomed his endorsement, urging followers to review her criticisms of German politics.

The AfD, polling at 19% ahead of February’s federal election, is officially under scrutiny as an extremist group by German authorities.

Musk has previously questioned the party’s “far-right” label. Controversy surrounds the AfD, including links to a meeting discussing deportation of migrants.

  • CaptPretentious@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    So Musk really is just going full Bond-esk super villain with world domination right? That’s what this is? He doesn’t have to win any election so long as he can just buy every government, which he can then ensure he owns all the money, to buy more…

    • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      See, this is why I don’t mind George Soros, a billionaire, is funding left wing causes. Too much of the rich class is disproportionately funding the right. Fight fire with fire.

  • xenomor@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Are we allowed to discuss the many many benefits that society might receive if Elon Musk were in fact assassinated?

    • don@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      I’d be, with extremely little resistance, willing to listen to your argument. Tread heavily if you dare.

    • uis@lemm.ee
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      20 hours ago

      Depends how western. For americans Russia is on the west.

  • hubobes@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    One of their supports just murdered 2 and insured 60 when he drove his car into a Christmas market…

  • snekerpimp@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Damn, so he’s just going to buy every government? I guess the first one was so cheap, he figures he can afford at least four or five more.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      People have a real problem grasping the wealth of 500 Billion dollars. At the Median US household income it would take 12 years to make a million dollars; 1,200 years to make a hundred million dollars; 12,000 years to make a billion dollars; and 1.2 million years to make a 100 billion dollars.

      His wealth is essentially limitless. It is that of a moderate sized country like Norway or Israel. When he can have an effect with 100 million dollars he could influence 5,000 elections with 500 billion dollars. And that’s not even talking about his investments in social media, PR cult of personality, and straight up vote buying in broad daylight.

      I sincerely hope he and X end up banned from Europe, with a warrant out for his arrest in relation for doing this. Because America has proven unable to stop him. Another country might though if they come down hard on anyone accepting his money and as hard as they can on him without using their military.

    • frunch@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Didn’t his estimated wealth nearly double in the past couple years? He’s got enough money to buy all the governments at this point

    • benni@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Fortunately, AfD is not in the government and possibly never will be

      • Saleh@feddit.org
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        2 days ago

        They have been getting traction consistently and German politics moved significantly to the right over the past years. Now supposedly progressive parties like the social democrats and greens spout stuff that five years ago was exclusive to the AfD and maybe the fringes of the Bavarian CSU.

        Even if they don’t govern they get their way more and more, which helps normalising their positions more and more, which gives them more and more votes.

  • rustydrd@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    Elon: “Why are they considered far-right? They don’t look far-right to me!”

    Also Elon: ⬅️-----------------------------🙋➡️

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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      1 day ago

      As a believer in Horseshoe Theory (Just hang around a tankie long enough, you will too)

      I’m really hoping these people somehow wrap around to being left… I mean that won’t happen because the Horseshoe only bends one way, but damn.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      It’s pretty much comes down to

      Do they support trans people and trans rights?

      Yes: Woke mind virus.

      No: TAKE MY MONEY!

      That’s why he’s in right wing politics now, he’s said as much. His trans daughter, who he dead names, was “stolen” from him.

      • Cliff@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I highly doubt that he ever had a real connection to his children in the first place.

        • AreaSIX @lemm.ee
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          6 hours ago

          Well, he did use one of his kids as a human shield repeatedly when appearing in public after Luigi crossed one of their guys off the board. That’s kind of a connection?

  • palordrolap@fedia.io
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    2 days ago

    So, has Musk straight up admitted to being a white supremacist or has he only dropped anvil-sized hints so far?

    • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      I don’t understand this, while it’s obviously bad to have this situation, isn’t this the logical conclusion of the American political system?

      Lobbying has been a thing for decades, isn’t the logical conclusion that we get tyrants infiltrating the government?

      Clearly America has been working towards this for a long time.

        • Asafum@feddit.nl
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          2 days ago

          Hopefully musk gets too close to Putin and finds himself “accidentally” falling out of a window

          • mPony@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Joke all you want; the moment anyone involved in US politics get defenestrated there is going to be a whole lotta crazy. The thing to remember is that regular people don’t get to go near those windows.

    • perestroika@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      I concur - someone should shoo him away (or at least downregulate him).

      Until that happens, companies that he owns can be boycotted in the faint hope that he understands something, but that kind of people, nah… they typically won’t.

      Once this episode is over - in whatever way - I even think we might see reforms in the US electoral system. To prevent an oligarch from buying everyone a crooked president.

      As for Germans, they will probably not appreciate his advise.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      For the month maybe, but its possible imports are gonna be higher in December for various shipping reasons. Monthly numbers aren’t always good indicators and have always been used to attack Tesla even when they were growing, not to say it might not be a preview of whats to come either. It’s around 15% YTD.

          • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Oh you meant it was down YTD. I was confusing you with one of the Tesla defenders who are claiming record growth.

            • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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              23 hours ago

              I mean maybe they have record growth for a month or two in a very specific region, like this one really bad month in the EU but ya not happening this year. It’s gonna take a huge Q4 push to not be down globally YTD but maybe they’ll squeak a tiny tiny growth out.

  • azimir@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    The rest of the world might need to bring the US to heel. We’re exporting hate and racism as a means to build fascist states around the world. Our rich are so rich and protected by the US military that they are becoming untethered from all remaining constraints about law and sovereignty for other countries.

    Here be dragons.

    • gcheliotis@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Yeah it’s weird because you can both see Russia as an exporter of hate, but the US is on it too. I guess before late everyone will be on it.

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Musk has previously questioned the party’s “far-right” label.

    Shut up Musk. Your countries political center (if it existed) would count as conservative in Germany.

  • Can’t say that I’m surprised. Both are pro-RuSSian trolls and just absolute morons in general, but it’s still pretty interesting, because the AfD absolutely hates EVs and prefers RuSSian oil imports. I honestly think that Musk just isn’t aware of their EV politics, and it makes all of this so much funnier 😂

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      Elon’s actually come out against EV subsidies. It seems counter intuitive until you realize he’s so detached from any one product that the power he’s derived from his wealth is more important now.

      • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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        At this point it’s not about the money, it’s about THE METS BABY!

        It’s about feeling like he’s in charge. At this point he’s so drunk on attention and power that he’d order a nuclear strike on his own daddy’s Emerald Mines if he thought it’d make him look like a big man.

      • Kornblumenratte@feddit.org
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        1 day ago

        Tesla sells their EVs as technical avantgarde and elitist sports cars. When EVs become commonplace, they’ll face serious competition. People won’t be content with their mediocre build quality and terrible ergonomics any longer. Musk countering EV subsidies is deeply based in reality.

    • leisesprecher@feddit.org
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      2 days ago

      Realistically, it’s not gonna happen. There’s too much cowardice in our political system for that.

      • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I feel like I remember hearing when AfD was getting less than the 5% (or whatever it is) minimum to be granted proportional seats. I knew they had grown in popularity, but they’re at 19% now. 19???!

        They should have already banned them.

        Meine Oma war 11 am Kriegsende, und hat mir natürlich viel von dir Geschichte persönlich erzählt.

        For fucking shame. Honestly.

        Makes me quite sad :( as an German Australian. And and as any human who’s been to school in the last 40 years.

        When will humanity learn that capitalism is the problem, not the foreigners…?

        • leisesprecher@feddit.org
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          19 hours ago

          The problem is, that the AfD slowly drifted from very conservative to far right, and for a pretty long time, they managed to seem sufficiently “bürgerlich” not to be legally extremist. It was perfectly clear that they were nazis, even years ago, but not provable.

          Add to that the two unsuccessful attempts to ban the even more right and NPD. They were afraid to fail again.

          Regarding the current 19%, Germany’s political, economic, and media system somehow paint itself into a corner. The politicians are largely out of ideas, they’re all fighting about petty conflicts, there’s hardly anything being done. Not that bad laws are enacted, nothing happens. The country runs on autopilot into a very obvious wall, and the politicians fight who can sit in the pilot’s seat. It’s a simulacrum.

          The economic system is eroding away. The old German model doesn’t work anymore, and the old conglomerates just switched to subsidies and rent seeking, no investment, no changes. Volkswagen wants to scale back EVs in favor of ICEs.

          The media are dominated by public access outlets, who are largely afraid to be critical, because someone could call them biased, and private media spreading hate for clicks.

          So, Germany is currently in a pretty bad situation and many many people see that, but don’t see anyone actually doing anything about it. But because they are bombarded with hate, they choose AfD. Absolutely stupid decision, but these people just lost every bit of trust in the system. And honestly, I blame the system.

          • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
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            18 hours ago

            Thanks for the lengthy reply. Pity about the public broadcasters, it’s the same here in Australia. The ABC’s funding has been cut so much that they’re rarely properly critical of the government.

            I, maybe naively, hold on to hope that we’ll be able to pull out of this global slide to the right without the horrors of last century.

            Frohe Weihnachten :)

        • boonhet@lemm.ee
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          23 hours ago

          When will humanity learn that capitalism is the problem, not the foreigners…?

          Nooo nnnnnoooo you seee it’s the people who (look different/speak different language/family came to the country later than your ancestors did) who are causing all your problems. Don’t look at Mr. Musk who has enough money to buy countries, or Mr. Kühne whose family company gladly helped do the logistics for the holocaust, while he doesn’t even pay taxes in Germany because he doesn’t believe in taxation.

    • LittleBorat3@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I hear there are 3 or for 4 candidates for chancellor now one is a lesbian Nazi bitch living in Switzerland so no, no wehrhafte Demokratie.

      All candidates are not well liked in terms of approval ratings so hooray 2025.

    • jagged_circle@feddit.nl
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      2 days ago

      AfD is cheering while the SPD’s thugs attack and arrest Jews calling for an end to Israeli terrorism.

      Not lookin’ good