Inside Elon Musk’s assault on Germany’s political establishment
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. In December, American billionaire and Trump confidant Elon Musk posted a six-word sentence on his social-media platform, X, that jolted Germany’s political landscape. “Only the AfD can save Germany," he wrote, embracing the far-right populist Alternative for Germany party, which calls for expelling illegal migrants, leaving the European Union and getting closer to Russia.
Musk endorsed the party—which campaigned against his own factory in Germany and has senior members who are vehemently anti-American—after a conversation in Mar-a-Lago with President Trump, Vice President JD Vance and others. During the meeting, Trump, Vance and Musk bashed the leaders of Germany’s more mainstream parties, according to two people familiar with the conversation. The episode shows how offhand comments by Trump and members of his inner circle are ricocheting around the world, amplified by Musk’s control of a social-media platform and his own enormous following.
Musk, who has sought to use X to shake up the European political establishment, had been souring on Germany and its leaders for some time as he spoke to entrepreneurs and others he met through his social-media platform, according to Musk’s public statements and some of those who spoke to him. But his public effort to boost the AfD began hours after the Mar-a-Lago meeting in mid December. During the meeting, Trump told his guests he had recently taken a call from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and said he found him boring, according to two people familiar with the conversation.
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