Worth an estimated $440 billion, Musk went “all in” to back his successful bid to retake the presidency. The Tesla CEO is now exporting his brand of divisive politics to Europe’s largest economy, advocating voters back the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) come February. 

On Sunday, he finally explained his reasoning in a column he wrote for the weekly newspaper Welt am Sonntag (WamS), arguing no one else but the AfD could restore strength and prosperity to the country. 

“The AfD is the last ray of hope for this country,” Musk wrote.

He is also wading into U.K. politics. Trump ally Nigel Farage, leader of the populist Reform party, has confirmed he’s in talks to receive a hefty donation from the tech mogul so long as they find a way to abide by U.K. campaign finance laws. 

What is Musk’s argument?

He warned Germany is “teetering on the brink” and that only the AfD can stave off an otherwise inevitable economic and cultural collapse. 

After briefly claiming the AfD alone is serious about deregulation—in part a reflection of guidelines from the European Union—he then praised its approach to preserving Germany’s cultural identity from the threat of globalization and open borders: “A nation must preserve its basic values and cultural legacy to remain strong and unified.”

He argued the decision to phase out nuclear power over a period of 12 years—which had its roots in the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters—was a mistake that rendered the economy vulnerable to power outages. Official statistics indicate otherwise, however.

Next he claimed Germany’s political establishment is ideologically bankrupt. “Their policies have led to economic stagnation, social unrest, and an undermining of the national identity,” he wrote. The AfD, by comparison, doesn’t shy away from addressing uncomfortable truths, according to Musk.

Lastly, he stated that the AfD would eliminate “indoctrination” in Germany’s education in favor of critical thinking. The university system is entirely different, however, and there have been no discernible debates similar to those taking place in the United States. 

Does Musk have a point to make?

Very broadly speaking, yes. His comment that “Germany has become too comfortable with mediocrity” is a view shared by many business leaders frustrated with its influential trade unions and extensive labor protections.

Industrial giants such as Volkswagen, ThyssenKrupp, and BASF have been announcing sweeping layoffs and threatened plant closures.

The double whammy of weaning itself off Russian natural gas combined with China’s malaise has arguably rendered Germany its weakest since it was branded “the sick man of Europe” at the turn of the millennium.

Just when Trump, a fierce critic of Germany, is set to take power, the governing “traffic light coalition” collapsed, sparking snap elections on Feb. 23. Together with chaos in neighboring France, Europe feels adrift and increasingly irrelevant on the geopolitical stage. 

Into this combustible mix comes Musk with his call to support the populist AfD. 

Why is this so controversial?

His endorsement has sparked a fierce debate in the country, because the AfD has been under surveillance after being designated by the federal government as a right-wing extremist threat to the liberal democratic order. 

The party sued the domestic intelligence agency to fight that label but lost, then appealed the decision and lost again in May. A higher court confirmed there was sufficient evidence proving the AfD poses a potential danger to the republic.

The ruling referred in part to the party’s desire for racial purity: A central goal advocated by its youth wing includes the “preservation of the German people in its ethnic stock.” 

Officially, the AfD does not sanction ties with Germany’s militant right-wing extremists, and it has been known to expel members when discovered. After a Frankfurt paper reported in October of last year that an AfD official elected to Hesse’s state parliament was known in the neo-Nazi scene, he was excluded from caucusing with them and left the party under pressure.

Investigations have also uncovered staffers with documented links to neo-Nazis who worked for AfD parliamentarians in the Bundestag. In fact, the very Sunday on which Musk published his column endorsing the AfD, a state legislator from Brandenburg, home to Tesla’s German plant, confirmed reports she had attended a meeting at which members of the forbidden “Blood & Honor” neo-Nazi organization were present.

In his column, Musk argued the party as a whole cannot possibly be considered right-wing extremist, because it elected Alice Weidel its cochair, whose gay partner is of Sri Lankan heritage. “Does that sound like Hitler to you? Please.”

What is the Alternative for Germany anyway?

Initially a party founded by economists opposing the Greek bailouts, alt-right hard-liners hijacked the party following the 2015 migrant crisis and turned the AfD into Germany’s version of MAGA. 

Its supporters bear many of the same antiestablishment views, including fierce opposition to COVID-era lockdowns, deep suspicion of the media, and hostility to whomever they deem as “globalists.” They generally favor deporting the millions of refugees and migrants invited into the country by Angela Merkel a decade ago. 

Its election program calls for Germany to exit the European Union—a policy that has severely kneecapped the U.K. economy—while setting relations with Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin on par with those of the White House. It also advocates restoring the country’s dependency on Russian natural gas by rebuilding the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

There’s one salient difference to populist parties elsewhere like Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy: AfD members are known for either trivializing Germany’s own Nazi past or outright denying the Holocaust. 

Weidel’s former colleague as AfD cochair famously likened Adolf Hitler to nothing more than a “bird shit” in the greater scheme of German history. As a result, there have been repeated calls for the AfD to be banned just like the state once did with the West German communist party.

During the last election in 2021, no less than 60 Jewish organizations in Germany joined forces to condemn the AfD as anti-Semitic, calling on voters to reject the party. 

“The AfD is a party that offers a home to Jew hatred and the relativization or even denial of the Shoah. The AfD is inhumane, antidemocratic, and in large parts radical,” they wrote at the time. 

Should a foreigner like Musk intervene in Germany’s election?

Musk regularly meets with heads of state—and most if not all of them court his business, so he has an overview of global competitive conditions. Who better to point out Germany’s weaknesses and propose policy solutions than the world’s most successful entrepreneur?

Musk is also a stakeholder having invested heavily in the country, including the rare decision to build a full-scale vehicle manufacturing plant in structurally poor eastern Germany. 

He’s also been affected personally. Anti-capitalist agitators seeking to damage Musk sabotaged his factory earlier this year, leading to what Tesla claimed was a $1 billion loss.

But while he has many fans in Europe equally critical of the continent’s many faults, his views are far more divisive in the more left-leaning parts of society. Musk has also actively stoked nativist grievances and racial resentment in the U.K. during this summer’s riots.

How has Musk’s AfD endorsement been received in Germany?

Although a number of frustrated Germans have defended his criticism of the country, reception has largely been poor, in part because of a superficial grasp of the issues or indeed the political system.

Musk, for example, incorrectly suggested Germany’s ceremonial head of state is standing for reelection, and recently claimed AfD policies are identical to those of U.S. Democrats when Barack Obama became president: “I don’t think there is a single difference.”

Even former AfD party leader Jörg Meuthen labeled Musk’s Sunday WamS column as “complete nonsense,” accusing the billionaire of displaying “incomprehensible naivety and an absolute ignorance of the AfD.”

The AfD moreover has almost zero chance of governing. Polling just below 20%, it’s far from an absolute majority, and it would struggle mightily to form a coalition government.

Take Thuringia, the former East German state where every third voter cast their ballot for the AfD in September. Even there, where the party enjoys the most support, the rest of the legislature banded together to form a cordon sanitaire quarantining the AfD from taking power.

Such an approach may ultimately prove counterproductive, but the simple fact is the AfD is considered by other parties to be radioactive. 

Tellingly, the column written by the world’s richest man was not even referenced on the front page of the WamS, and a number of journalists publicly distanced themselves from their otherwise staunchly conservative paper’s editorial decision. The head of the opinion section outright resigned in protest.