BERLIN — Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk brought on uproar after backing Germany’s far-right occasion in a serious newspaper forward of key parliamentary elections within the Western European nation, resulting in the resignation of the paper’s opinion editor in protest.
Germany is to vote in an early election on Feb. 23 after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party governing coalition collapsed final month in a dispute over the best way to revitalize the nation’s stagnant economic system.
Musk’s visitor opinion piece for Welt am Sonntag —a sister publication of POLITICO owned by the Axel Springer Group — revealed in German over the weekend, was the second time this month he supported the Different for Germany, or AfD.
“The Different for Germany (AfD) is the final spark of hope for this nation,” Musk wrote in his translated commentary.
He went on to say the far-right occasion “can lead the nation right into a future the place financial prosperity, cultural integrity and technological innovation usually are not simply needs, however actuality.”
The Tesla Motors CEO additionally wrote that his funding in Germany gave him the best to touch upon the nation’s situation.
The AfD is polling strongly, however its candidate for the highest job, Alice Weidel, has no lifelike probability of turning into chancellor as a result of different events refuse to work with the far-right occasion.
An ally of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, the expertise billionaire challenged in his opinion piece the occasion’s public picture.
“The portrayal of the AfD as right-wing extremist is clearly false, contemplating that Alice Weidel, the occasion’s chief, has a same-sex associate from Sri Lanka! Does that sound like Hitler to you? Please!”
Musk’s commentary has led to a debate in German media over the boundaries of free speech, with the paper’s personal opinion editor asserting her resignation, pointedly on Musk’s social media platform, X.
“I at all times loved main the opinion part of WELT and WAMS. Right this moment 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 vital article by the long run editor-in-chief of the Welt group, Jan Philipp Burgard, accompanied Musk’s opinion piece.
“Musk’s prognosis is appropriate, however his therapeutic strategy, that solely the AfD can save Germany, is fatally flawed,” Burgard wrote.
Responding to a request for remark from the German Press Company, dpa, the present editor-in-chief of the Welt group, Ulf Poschardt, and Burgard — who is because of take over on Jan. 1 — mentioned in a joint assertion that the dialogue over Musk’s piece was “very insightful. Democracy and journalism thrive on freedom of expression.”
“It will proceed to find out the compass of the “world” sooner or later. We’ll develop “Die Welt” much more decisively as a discussion board for such debates,” they wrote to dpa.
