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.
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.
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.
Rest of the world, please take us as a cautionary tale, not a model for emulation
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.
Musk reminds me of that Blofeld character that was in one of those lethal weapon flicks
Diplometic immunite
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
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.
If luigi killed this guy I would not shed a single tear.
I would crack open an ice cold beer.
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
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.
vietnamese people think elon musk and donald trump are right about everything because they are smart because they are rich and because america is a democracy
they are deified, basically. just like ho chi minh
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!
You know what bothers me? Musk knows hes bullshitting everyone and it seems like its fucking laugh to him. Remember when the hyper rich built libraries and funded colleges and, i dunno, just gave back? To think, just a few short years ago, he was presenting as some kind of visionary. Turns out, hes just a capitalist asshole.
Noblesse oblige still exists, but the loudest morons with wealth don’t do it. Classy people with wealth certainly still do
This country collapses when the far right party is in power.
We have a huge problem. Me need young people from other countries, because Germany is pretty old.
Having those clowns in power will worsen the problem.
An unfortunate truth is that this generation’s youth is actually more conservative than the previous one…
What the fuck does he even know about germany?
It’s not an oligarchy yet.
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.
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 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.
Someone call luigi
He knows that Nazis are from there, and that’s pretty fckn rad baby
Musk later doubled down, calling for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s resignation.
This stupid POS doesn’t even know that this already happened a few days ago.
Scholz didn’t resign, he called for and lost a vote of no confidence, so the parliament will be dissolved by the German prime minister and new elections are due in late February, where Scholz can (and likely will) throw his hat in the ring again.
A resignation is something different.
OK, yeah you’re right.
No, that’s exactly how resignation works for a chancellor in Germany. The only alternative would be for a new chancellor to be elected by the Bundestag (parlament), but since no candidate would have a majority he resigned by triggering a vote of confidence.
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.
Mastodon just does t have features most users will want
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.
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.
If true, that would still make it not quite as bad as Twitter.
Do you have citations to support any of your claims?
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?
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.
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.
Only Nazis can save Germany…isn’t there precedent for that not working?
