Berlin:

Germany’s government said Monday US billionaire tech baron Elon Musk is trying to sway February elections by praising the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), a move strongly rejected by major parties.

Musk — a key supporter of US President-elect Donald Trump, and his incoming “efficiency czar” — posted on his social media platform X this month that “only the AfD can save Germany”.

He then doubled down on the claim with an opinion piece in a German Sunday newspaper.

On Monday, German government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann said that “it is a fact that Elon Musk is trying to exert influence on the parliamentary election”.

“In Germany, elections are decided by voters at the ballot box,” she told a regular press conference, adding that the country’s “elections are a matter for Germans”.

Europe’ biggest economy will head to the polls on February 23 after the collapse of centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s unruly coalition government last month.

Hoffmann said that Musk “is free to express his opinion, but one doesn’t have to share it”.

She recalled that various branches of the AfD have been labelled “extremist” by Germany’s domestic security agency.

Lars Klingbeil, co-leader of Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), told the Funke media group that Musk “is trying the same thing as Vladimir Putin”, the Russian president.

“They both want to influence our elections and support the AfD, which is hostile to democracy,” he said, accusing both Musk and Putin of “wanting Germany to be weakened and pushed into chaos”.

Klingbeil said more action was needed on the European level to restrict the political power of big social media platforms such as X.

Musk has repeatedly used X to attack Scholz personally, most recently in the wake of a deadly car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg on December 20.

Musk called Scholz an “incompetent fool” and said he “should resign immediately”.

Musk’s interventions in German politics have also been criticised by Scholz’s main rival, the leader of the conservative opposition CDU/CSU, Friedrich Merz. 

Merz labelled Musk’s AfD endorsement as “interfering and presumptuous” and said he could not remember “a comparable case of meddling in the election campaign of an allied country in the history of Western democracy”.

The AfD is in second place in the latest polls at 19 percent, behind the CDU/CSU opposition, which is at 32 percent.

The SPD is headed for its worst-ever result at 16 percent while its Green coalition partners are polling at 13 percent.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. billionaire Elon Musk backed Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) in a guest opinion piece for Germany’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper published online on Saturday (December 28, 2024) that prompted the commentary editor to resign in protest.

In the commentary, published in German by the flagship paper of the Axel Springer media group, Mr. Musk expanded on his post on social media platform X last week claiming that “only the AfD can save Germany.”

“The portrayal of the AfD as right-wing extremist is clearly false, considering that Alice Weidel, the party’s leader, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka! Does that sound like Hitler to you? Please!” Mr. Musk said in the piece.

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has classified the AfD at the national level as a suspected extremism case since 2021.

Shortly after the piece was published online, the editor of the opinion section, Eva Marie Kogel, wrote on X that she had submitted her resignation, with a link to the commentary.

“Democracy and journalism thrive on freedom of expression. This includes dealing with polarising positions and classifying them journalistically,” the newspaper’s editor-in-chief designate Jan Philipp Burgard and Ulf Poschardt, who takes over as publisher on January 1, told Reuters.

They said discussion about Mr. Musk’s piece, which had around 340 comments several hours after it was published, was “very revealing.”

Underneath Mr. Musk’s commentary, the newspaper published a response by Mr. Burgard.

“Musk’s diagnosis is correct, but his therapeutic approach, that only the AfD can save Germany, is fatally false,” he wrote, referencing the AfD’s desire to leave the European Union and seek rapprochement with Russia as well as appease China.

The AfD backing from Mr. Musk, who also defended his right to weigh in on German politics due to his “significant investments,” comes as Germans are set to vote on Feb. 23 after a coalition government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz collapsed.

The AfD is running second in opinion polls and might be able to thwart either a centre-right or centre-left majority, but Germany’s mainstream, more centrist parties have pledged to shun any support from the AfD at national level.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz walks after his speech in the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany on November 13.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

The story so far: On November 6, Germany’s ruling ‘traffic light’ coalition, composed of the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the Free Democrats (FDP), collapsed when Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired his Finance Minister, FDP’s Christian Lindner. A no-confidence motion against the government will be initiated on December 16, which Mr. Scholz is sure to lose without the support of the FDP. Therefore, Mr. Scholz has agreed to hold snap elections on February 23, 2025 ahead of the scheduled election in September 2025.

What happened?

Germany’s current ruling coalition, which came to power in 2021, has been one of the most ineffective coalitions that the country has seen. Constant infighting over key issues such as the budget agreement, war with Ukraine, defence and energy spending has brought about a dysfunctional governance model.

While the Chancellor’s SPD and the Greens want heavy state investment by increasing government borrowing, Mr. Lindner’s bro-business party has rejected the same by espousing strict adherence to Germany’s debt brake rule which prohibits borrowing beyond a set limit. Further, the FDP has asked for tax cuts for the wealthy, and austerity measures both of which have been staunchly opposed by the other two coalition partners.

The looming multi-billion dollar gap in the federal budget is yet another thorn on the side of the government.

What is Germany’s debt brake rule?

Germany’s debt brake rule limits the EU country’s borrowing to 0.35% of its GDP. This limit, written into Basic Law (German Constitution), effectively means that the government has to try to balance its books every fiscal year, that is, it can only spend what it makes via taxes and levies. This rule was written into the law in 2009 after the 2008 economic crisis to bring public finances back under the control of the government. The debt brake limits indiscriminate government borrowing which would later translate to huge interest and fall as a burden on future generations. While it had been opposed then by the Greens and other opposition parties as limiting the government’s ability to spend and act, it became legally binding for the federal government and the states in 2016 and 2020, respectively. No other EU country has such strict borrowing rules.

However, there is an exception clause “which allows the Bundestag [German Parliament] to suspend the debt brake by a simple majority in the event of a natural disaster or other extraordinary emergency situations beyond the control of the state.” The Bundestag has already used this exception from 2020-2022 citing the COVID-19 pandemic and the onset of the Ukraine-Russia war which caused the energy crisis in the country — Germany has been one of the strongest defenders of Ukraine in the EU, with funds for Ukraine’s security capacity building initiative in 2024 alone amounting to approximately 7.1 billion euro. However, this has led to Germany cutting/weaning off from Russian energy causing an energy crisis in the country, the effects of which are still felt in the economy.

What about the budget?

To work around the debt brake and to finance its fiscal needs, Germany has a list of various off-budget ‘special funds’ which it uses for economic spending without breaking the debt limit. Some of these funds include the climate and transformation fund, the economic stabilisation fund, the federal armed forces fund etc. The ruling coalition was depending on these funds to get them through the increased commitments to climate initiatives and defence spending.

However, on November 15, 2023, a constitutional court ruled that transferring unused pandemic era debt of around 60 billion euros to one of the funds, specifically the climate and transformation fund, was unconstitutional. This had blown a hole into the federal budget and further stressed a coalition already frayed by ideological differences.

What next?

The leader of the opposition alliance, composed of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU), Friedrich Merz is leading in opinion surveys. A poll conducted by Forsa, wherein they asked citizens who they would vote for if there was an election next Sunday, showed the opposition alliance leading at 33% as compared to the SPD’s 16%.

However, AfD, the far-right party of Germany, is also gaining influence in the country. The anti-immigrant party recently won the election in the eastern state of Thuringia, its first state election since the Nazi-era. According to Forsa, AfD’s approval rates are at 17%, higher than the SPD’s.

The AfD has been accused of having extensive networks with neo-Nazi groups. A former AfD member of the German parliament is currently in custody for alleged involvement in the planning of a coup. There is even a proposal to file a motion to ban the AfD. Therefore, while the AfD are unlikely to lead government, the party could get a larger seat share in the Bundestag. AfD has opposed all arms shipment to Ukraine and similar to U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has called for strict rules against irregular migration and open borders.