Summary
Elon Musk sparked outrage in Germany by endorsing the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party on his platform, X, claiming “only the AfD can save Germany.”
The AfD, which polls second ahead of Germany’s February snap election, has been labeled extremist by German intelligence.
Political leaders accused Musk of election interference, while others criticized his remarks as harmful. Musk later doubled down, calling for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s resignation.
Musk’s comments align with his past support for far-right and anti-immigration figures across Europe and beyond.
We’re running into the paradox of tolerance real quick here folks. Democracies need to legislate limits to the political influence of rich idiots and soon, otherwise we’ll all end up like the US.
Well, funny thing is we do have rules about what you can and cannot say, in Europe. I’m looking forward to him discovering those little subtleties, since he clearly cannot shut his trap.
Rest of the world, please take us as a cautionary tale, not a model for emulation
These are rules that are supposed to already exist though. Foreign political influence is always considered a bad thing by the country receiving it. The UK and Germany should have strong protections against it but apparently they don’t.
lol as if they don’t like them. they themselves are rich idiots, the only difference is that ironically they don’t have as much political influence as unelected rich idiots.
It’s important to note that right after saying this…
A German AFD supporter who retweets Musk drove into a Christmas market in a terrorist attack
Germany has stricter laws about inciting violence, it’s a long shot but maybe he’ll get charges
Elon Musk is, as far as I am concerned, directly responsible for (so far and let’s hope it stays that way) the murder of five people.
Im not aware of these 5 people Can you share more?
I’m guessing you are aware, but I’ll play along.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/christmas-market-germany-car-dead-injured-magdeburg/
I fucking hate the guy. I just legit didn’t know.
Thanks for the link
Yeah it’s pretty new information that chronically online people might already know, but others may not.
I just heard about it like an hour ago via NPR.
chronically online people
(and everyone in Germany and nearby countries)
Obviously local news is going to be heard by local people before international people hear about it by international news. You didn’t need to say that.
I’m all for bashing Elon Musk, but how is he actually directly responsible for that massacre?
Al-Abdulmohsen also posted a video where he used an AI avatar of Elon Musk to criticize the German government for what he said was its suppression of free speech and enabling the abuse of Saudi refugees.
He had previously reposted the tech billionaire, who expressed his support for AfD last week, writing on X: “Only the AfD can save Germany.”
Also:
And the AfD’s knee-jerk reaction was to assume he was a muslim jihadist, proving his point about German attitudes about Saudi refugees.
A German AFD supporter who retweets Musk drove into a Christmas market in a terrorist attack
Ohhhh, that’s why I haven’t seen the regular racist memes on conservative social media. Pretty on brand
Wasn’t the driver himself an immigrant?
Yes. An atheist 50 year old Saudi man.
Wasn’t trump voted by many Latinos?
Most Latinos still voted for Kamala, especially Latina women. There is a culture of machismo even worse than the US in some Latin American countries, so they see Trump as a strong man who does whatever he wants and gets away with it.
The worse part is that many Latinos who immigrated the official way, which is a huge pain in the ass, feel no solidarity with undocumented Latinos. I’ve heard worse anti immigrant shit on many occasions from Latinos than I’ve heard from black and white Americans.
He’s a modern day Nazi leader, what do you expect him to say?
Matches up with history. Hitler had a giant portrait of Henry Ford in his office. American racism, genocide, and capitalism was a major inspiration for the Nazis
There is nothing surprising about a white South African promoting a racist political party. White South Africans are the most openly and unabashedly racist people on the planet.
Japan and China will challenge your statement
The racism olympics is pretty competitive this year
It hasn’t been this competitive since 1945!
Only Nazis can save Germany…isn’t there precedent for that not working?
Well Elon isn’t Jewish, gay, roma, disabled, Germsn, polish, French, Italian, Russian, British, …or a poor American so it isn’t his problem
Nazi supporting Nazi also supports other Nazis.
What the fuck does he even know about germany?
What the fuck does he know about America?
It doesn’t matter to him. All he knows that he’s a Dark Enlightenment fascist white supremacist. The poors and non-whites must die. Fascist governments must be in power everywhere so he can have his world where he is king, he has robots to do his bidding and can try to live forever.
He knows that Nazis are from there, and that’s pretty fckn rad baby
His knowledge is mostly restricted to the years 1933-1945.
He didn’t read the ending. No one tell him the spoiler.
How about a Life reenactment?
I, as Citizen of Germany by birth and Law, invite Elon Musk to Nürnberg. We bring some Judges and a Rope.
To be honest the ending for rich capitalist(the same that helped Hitler in power) in west Germany was pretty good. They profit heavily during the war and afterwards the mostly just kept there companies continuing to profit.
That’s because the US rebuilt Germany, as a barrier to the USSR.
He knows what benifits him. That’s the entirety of his motivations. Evil greedy assholes are quite dull, he just knows what makes him more money and more power.
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It’s not an oligarchy yet.
If luigi killed this guy I would not shed a single tear.
I would crack open an ice cold beer.
Elon grew up and enjoyed the South African Apartheid regime and he is a neo-Nazi.
Save Germany from what? Being a successful, modern country that takes care of its people?
Ugh, I must live in alternate-reality Germany. Not like AfD can improve things, but come on
I genuinely apologize for my ignorance. Germany looks like a damned paradise of free healthcare and other social welfare programs from the States. What issues are you facing over there?
Mainly missed opportunities due to inefficiencies and conflicts of interest in politics I’d say?
The biggest issue is a lack of investments due to us putting a block of taking on new government debt into our constitution so there never is enough money to invest in things like the infrastructure. That and too much bureaucracy in everything.
Just want to clarify that healthcare is not free; there are insurance companies and coverage is paid for.
The difference is they are more regulated and everyone must have insurance coverage
Elon Musk is a danger to democracy all over the world
No country is safe from Elon Musk’s election interference. It’s urgent that we boycott Twitter and Tesla. If you have a Twitter account do the following now:
- Send a DM to your favorite accounts and urge them to stop using Twitter.
- (If you haven’t already) register for Bluesky.
- Make a Tweet saying you are no longer using Twitter.
- Tell your friends to follow the same instructions.
These could take as little as five minutes of your time but it will make a huge difference because of the ripple effect. When one person leaves it will automatically incentivize your friends to follow you. You have the power to make a difference.
register for Bluesky
Replace that with Mastodon and you’re golden.
Either is better than X/Twitter for now. Bluesky is “easier” for many people. I prefer Mastodon myself, but there’s a bridge so I can follow Bluesky profiles (and vice-versa) which is nice.
Does BlueSky utilize Activity Pub?
No. They use something called the “AT Protocol” and that’s about all I know about it.
I imagine some sort of compatibility layer could be designed, but I don’t know how much fidelity you could preserve.
Bluesky is not better, it’s at best a sidegrade and possibly worse.
This is false. It still has areas in which it could improve, but it is a thousand times better than twitter.
It’s ownership is a shadowy cabal of Billionaires (as opposed to a mutually federated network of independent sites (Mastodon) or a single, crazed, billionaire) and it’s already proven it will censor and shape discussions how those billionaires see fit.
Shadowy cabal? They literally list their board of directors on their FAQ…
Jay Graber; Jeremie Miller, the inventor of Jabber/XMPP; Mike Masnick; and Kinjal Shah.
What about a group of public figures is a shadowy cabal?
If true, that would still make it not quite as bad as Twitter.
Do you have citations to support any of your claims?
It’s at least half a decade earlier on the enshittification timeline.
It is better than xitter right now (almost anything is) but the earlier you quit the black-box-algorithm-skinnerbox needle, the better.
Mastodon just does t have features most users will want
You should be more undersantding. Since Trump is now enraged because people call Musk the President, Musk needs to find a backup country where he’ll be called the leader before Trump kicks him out. That’s all just risk mitigation!
An apartheid-loving nazi calls for the nazi party to be the savior of Germany? Never would I have guessed.
The information, I as a not very politically interested German (understatement) have: We are holding re-elections on Feburary 23rd because the current government imploded. Basically, the rich guys’ party doesn’t want to make rich guys pay taxes and being children about it, most other parties seem desperate at this point, else they wouldn’t have challenged that much. They have never cared that much, so I have no idea what changed. The populist nazi party Musk cheers for has a lot traction because people are beyond stupid and self-centered and I fear that they will get a significant amount of votes. Maybe they don’t win outright, but they will realistically take second place. I regard everyone that considers to vote for AfD as a nazi.
I think the real problem is that most parties in Germany that held some power in the last decades did little to nothing to actually improve the economic situation of the “normal” people. For many it stayed the same, for many others it declined significantly starting with Corona and then with the energy crisis that contributed heavily to the inflation.
Paired with us being one of the few nations that raise no taxes at all on wealth but just on income the disparity between the rich and the poor is growing. So people have only the parties that haven’t held power yet to turn to.
I think it’s at least partially some weird form of misplaced hope that something will change for the better in the chaos that would be a AfD government.
But you are correct, supporting the AfD is directly benefiting Nazis. And while I don’t think that all AfD supporters will always be Nazis, they currently are.
For someone not very politically interested you seem to know a good bit. Please vote in February.
bro thinks hes henry ford
Well, the nazism, the car thing, the evil vulture capitalist…kinda similar.
TBH he is. Ford was a piece of shit and so is he.
