In Germany, Elon Musk accused of trying to “influence” the legislative elections – L’Express

In Germany Elon Musk accused of trying to influence the

Elon Musk continues to create a stir in Germany. This Monday, December 30, Berlin accused the American billionaire of trying to “influence the German legislative elections” scheduled for the end of February with his repeated support for the far-right AfD party.

“He is free to express his opinion”, but this amounts to “an electoral recommendation for a party which is monitored” by German Domestic Intelligence, “because it is suspected of being far-right” and has already “been recognized” by the courts as such, underlined Christiane Hoffmann, deputy government spokesperson, during a regular press briefing. This qualification in Germany for a political movement can justify police surveillance due to fears of undermining the constitutional order.

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Saturday, the daily World published a cross-article in which the boss of X, spaceX and Tesla assures that the Alternative for Germany (AfD) is “the last glimmer of hope” for Germany. He considers his classification as far-right “clearly false”. The richest man in the world reaffirmed a position already expressed on December 20 in a tweet which had created unease in the country in the midst of the election campaign.

The AfD is credited with an average of 19% of voting intentions in the polls, second behind the conservative opposition, in the lead with 32%.

Elon Musk compared to Vladimir Putin

The embarrassment in Germany is commensurate with the growing influence that the multibillionaire seems to have on the future Trump presidency, in which he is to take the head of the “Department of Government Efficiency”. On November 8, he had already called Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz “crazy”, following the breakup of the government coalition. And on December 20, after the car-ramming attack on the Magdeburg Christmas market, he called him an “incompetent idiot” and called on him to resign.

“Freedom of expression also includes the greatest absurdities,” judged its spokesperson Christiane Hoffmann in this regard. The president of the Social Democratic Party, Lars Klingbeil, compared Elon Musk’s behavior to that of Russian President Vladimir Putin: “both want Germany to be weakened and plunged into chaos.”

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Well placed to become the next chancellor, conservative Friedrich Merz also castigated Elon Musk’s pro-AfD platform, deemed “intrusive and pretentious”. “I don’t remember that in the history of Western democracies there has been a comparable case of interference in the electoral campaign of a friendly country,” the head of the Christian Democratic Union CDU told the newspapers of the Funke group, known for its very Atlantic positions.

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