Fresh from explosively disrupting the politics of the US and Britain, Elon Musk has now turned his attention to Germany. The world’s richest man has written an op-ed in the newspaper Die Welt, endorsing the hard-right populist AfD party, which he has called ‘Germany’s last faint hope’.
By doing so, Musk has smashed the carefully constructed firewall which Germany’s old ruling centre-right and centre-left parties had erected against the rapidly rising AfD. The older parties have effectively refused to cooperate with it or join the AfD in local government coalitions.
Germany’s establishment will not stem the rise of the right by banning the AfD or branding them as neo-Nazis
With Germany facing a general election in February after the collapse of Olaf Scholz’s wildly unpopular coalition government, Musk’s intervention could not have been better timed. It has already caused a rumpus at the centre right Die Welt, with the paper’s comment editor resigning in protest against Musk’s piece.
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