BERLIN — Tech entrepreneur and Donald Trump confidant Elon Musk sparked an uproar after backing Germany’s right-wing party in a major newspaper ahead of key parliamentary elections in the Western European country, leading to 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 center-left governing coalition collapsed last month in a dispute over how to revitalize the country’s stagnant economy.
Mr. Musk’s guest opinion piece for Welt am Sonntag — a sister publication of POLITICO owned by the Axel Springer Group — published in German over the weekend, was the second time this month he has signaled his strong support for the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, a once-fringe far-right movement that has been surging in the polls in recent years.
“The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is the last spark of hope for this country,” Mr. Musk wrote in his translated commentary.
He went on to say the far-right party “can lead the country into a future where economic prosperity, cultural integrity and technological innovation are not just wishes, but reality.”
The Tesla Motors CEO also wrote that his significant investments in Germany gave him the right to comment on the country’s condition.
PHOTOS: Musk causes uproar for backing Germany's far-right party ahead of key elections
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.
But Mr. Musk, a technology billionaire whose recent relationship with Mr. Trump has only amplified his voice in the public debate, challenged the party’s public image in his latest opinion piece, saying fears the party harkened back to the country’s dark Nazi past were badly misplaced.
“The portrayal of the AfD as right-wing 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!” Mr. Musk wrote in part.
Mr. Musk’s commentary has led to a debate in German media over the boundaries of free speech, with the paper’s own opinion editor announcing her resignation, pointedly on Mr. 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 by the future editor-in-chief of the Welt group, Jan Philipp Burgard, accompanied Mr. Musk’s opinion piece.
“Musk’s diagnosis is correct, but his therapeutic approach, that only the AfD can save Germany, is fatally wrong,” Mr. Burgard wrote.
Responding to a request for comment from the German Press Agency, dpa, the current editor-in-chief of the Welt group, Ulf Poschardt, and Mr. Burgard — who is due to take over on Jan. 1 — said in a joint statement that the discussion over Mr. Musk’s piece was “very insightful. Democracy and journalism thrive on freedom of expression.”
“This will continue to determine the compass of the “world” in the future. We will develop ’Die Welt’ even more decisively as a forum for such debates,” they wrote to dpa.
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