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.

  • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    If luigi killed this guy I would not shed a single tear.

    I would crack open an ice cold beer.

  • matlag@sh.itjust.works
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    11 hours ago

    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!

  • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    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.

    • fibojoly@sh.itjust.works
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      13 hours ago

      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.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      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.

    • pyre@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      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.

  • nutsack@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    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

  • cows_are_underrated@feddit.org
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    2 days ago

    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.

    • viking@infosec.pub
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      1 day 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.

      • excral@feddit.org
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        1 day ago

        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.

    • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      English teacher here. Often editing to use less words can make your statements more concise and accurate. For example, try “STFU Musk, you know shit”

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          19 hours ago

          Their advice is kind of bad… “you know shit” implies that he’s intelligent and knows things. Especially if just written down. If speaking, you may be able to convey what you want with tone and context, but even still…

          Despite it being technically incorrect, grammatically, what you meant to say was, “you don’t know shit.” E.g., “You don’t know shit about Germany” = “You know nothing about Germany.”

          English is fucking weird, and I can’t imagine learning all of these rules. Frankly, I couldn’t even explain to you how I know 3/4 of them, it’s just innate at this point.

          • monolalia@lemmy.world
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            14 hours ago

            English is fucking weird, and I can’t imagine learning all of these rules. Frankly, I couldn’t even explain to you how I know 3/4 of them, it’s just innate at this point.

            Not even knowing shit = not even knowing the least (most worthless) amount possible = knowing nothing?

            All languages are weird. English has very little in the way of inflection, which makes it fairly easy to pick up (in my opinion). For example, it only has one word each for “the” and “a(n)” whereas German has “der/die/das, des/der/des, dem/der/dem, den/die/das, die, der, den, die” and “ein/eine/ein, eines/einer/eines, einem/einer/einem, einen/eine/ein”. Yes, lots of duplicates, but each instance has its own distinct grammatical function, and its much the same with adjectives and nouns, and it all has to line up; “green” is different depending on the grammatical gender and number and noun case of whatever it is that is green… for example.

            I think at some point you’re pretty much done actively learning rules unless you’re a proofreader, teacher, editor, translator, writer, philologist… you ’ll just have to move on to immersing yourself in English, whether it’s in person or via song lyrics, movies, books, forums, articles, documentation, video games. That way you’ll pick up idiomatic expressions like this one and ideally develop something like an informed sense for what sounds right (for example: “I could care less” doesn’t make much sense, and “irregardless” is a pointless double negative).

          • Taleya@aussie.zone
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            13 hours ago

            Mm but we’re also very contextual- the ‘shut the fuck up’ implies the negative. So a native speaker automatically fills in the missing ‘all’ after shit or ‘don’t’ before know depending on regional preference

        • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Don’t listen to them, your statement was fine, your English is good, and I think what you wrote is better than their edit.

          I think they’re trying to be funny by implying that he doesn’t know shit about anything, rather than just Germany, but it’s not a well crafted joke if that was the intention.

      • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        But that sounds like the other usage of shit. It can mean nothing or it could man a lot. I mean with the shut the fuck up (which is more impactful than STFU) connotation the meaning isn’t lost but it’s a more confusing statement.

    • BigBenis@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Elon has a lot of money, therefore people listen to him, therefore he knows everything about anything he pleases.

  • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
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    2 days ago

    An apartheid-loving nazi calls for the nazi party to be the savior of Germany? Never would I have guessed.

    The information, I as a not very politically interested German (understatement) have: We are holding re-elections on Feburary 23rd because the current government imploded. Basically, the rich guys’ party doesn’t want to make rich guys pay taxes and being children about it, most other parties seem desperate at this point, else they wouldn’t have challenged that much. They have never cared that much, so I have no idea what changed. The populist nazi party Musk cheers for has a lot traction because people are beyond stupid and self-centered and I fear that they will get a significant amount of votes. Maybe they don’t win outright, but they will realistically take second place. I regard everyone that considers to vote for AfD as a nazi.

    • killingspark@feddit.org
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      2 days ago

      I think the real problem is that most parties in Germany that held some power in the last decades did little to nothing to actually improve the economic situation of the “normal” people. For many it stayed the same, for many others it declined significantly starting with Corona and then with the energy crisis that contributed heavily to the inflation.

      Paired with us being one of the few nations that raise no taxes at all on wealth but just on income the disparity between the rich and the poor is growing. So people have only the parties that haven’t held power yet to turn to.

      I think it’s at least partially some weird form of misplaced hope that something will change for the better in the chaos that would be a AfD government.

      But you are correct, supporting the AfD is directly benefiting Nazis. And while I don’t think that all AfD supporters will always be Nazis, they currently are.

  • lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com
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    2 days ago

    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.

    • john89@lemmy.ca
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      1 day ago

      An unfortunate truth is that this generation’s youth is actually more conservative than the previous one…

  • InfiniteGlitch@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    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.”

    I do not understand the outrage on this (regard Musk being Far-Right supporter), everyone knows Musk has become an immensely Extreme Far-Right supporter and leans heavily into Fascism. He support all the Right/ Far-Right political parties and people.

    “only the AfD can save Germany.”

    As usual, his claims are immensely wrong, stupid and idiotic. I mean, the afD literally tried to do a coúp in Germany;

    1. Gevaar voor Duitsland niet geweken met oppakken coupplanners, angst voor rechts-radicale AfD groeit.
    2. Germany’s far-right AfD party to eject members for suspected links to militant group.

    The AfD, which polls second ahead of Germany’s February snap election, has been labeled extremist by German intelligence.

    Unfortunately shows that lots of people in Germany are supporting Far-Right/ Nazism ideas, tactics and ideology. Especially since it has been proven that many of the afD are Nazi-supports (especially the leaders);

    1. Co-leader of Germany’s far-right AfD party fined for using Nazi slogan

    From article 3;

    The case involved Björn Höcke’s use of “Everything for Germany!” in a 2021 speech. While prosecutors said he knew it was originally a Nazi slogan, Höcke claimed it was an “everyday saying”.

    This text is to separate the quote of the article and the quote from OP’s post.

    Political leaders accused Musk of election interference, while others criticized his remarks as harmful.

    Accussed? If I remember, he did interfere with the election in America by trying to ‘purchase’ votes (Insanity that this is allowed);

    1. Elon Musk can keep giving $1m to voters, judge rules.
    • Zink@programming.dev
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      2 days ago

      I do not understand the outrage on this (regard Musk being Far-Right supporter), everyone knows Musk has become an immensely Extreme Far-Right supporter and leans heavily into Fascism.

      It doesn’t have to be surprising to outrage people though.

    • Kyrgizion@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Accussed? If I remember, he did interfere with the election in America by trying to ‘purchase’ votes (Insanity that this is allowed);

      Citizens United ruling says money is speech. So in the US, this is unfortunately 100% legal.

      Not in the EU though…