U.S. billionaire Elon Musk reiterated his support for the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) during the—much advertised and criticised—conversation with its co-leader Alice Weidel on Thursday, January 9th.
“I think only AfD can save Germany and I just want to be very clear about that,” Musk said during the discussion, which was streamed live on the entrepreneur’s X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter.
Musk has made a lot of enemies in liberal circles by publicly declaring his support for right-wing, patriotic politicians—such as Donald Trump—and parties like the AfD, currently in second place in opinion polls. The German national elections are scheduled to take place on February 23rd.
The European Commission, which is displeased with Musk’s approach of allowing unlimited free speech on the X platform, warned Musk prior to his conversation with Weidel to comply with European Union regulations, and not give the AfD leader an unfair advantage in the election campaign by boosting the video on X using algorithms. For the much maligned Thursday night event, the commission dispatched up to 150 officials to monitor whether Musk’s social media site complies with the EU’s tech rules, with authority to access X’s internal communications and algorithms.
Leftist and liberal members of the European Parliament are demanding a debate about X’s “threat to democracy” and “interference” in European politics.
Talking to Musk, Alice Weidel reminded the audience that the AfD, which was formed twelve years ago and gained popularity with its tough stance on immigration, has been labelled “extremist”, isolated by the political establishment, and vilified by the mainstream media for holding its views on issues such as migration, the climate, and Ukraine—that don’t conform to ‘liberal’ norms. As Weidel pointed out:
It’s a completely new situation for me that I just can have a normal conversation and I’m not interrupted or negatively framed.
Elaborating on various topics that Musk had asked her about during their 60+ minutes of discussion, Weidel made the following comments:
On free speech:
While we are talking, 150 bureaucrats of the European Union are watching our conversation, to enforce this ridiculous Digital Services Act that is nothing other than censorship of free speech. Free speech is a precondition of democracy. You should be able to form a proper opinion, and exchange opinions and ideas. A democracy should be a competition of the best ideas.
On Angela Merkel:
Angela Merkel, the first green chancellor, basically ruined our country. Without asking the people, she opened up our borders to illegal immigration in 2015. She wrecked and destroyed our economy with an obnoxious energy policy. Germany is the only industrial country that unplugged its nuclear power plants.
On energy policy:
The Angela Merkel government and the so-called ridiculous ‘traffic light’ coalition enforced a green policy upon our country that doesn’t work. Without the diversification of energy supply, we cannot run an industrial country with a strong manufacturing base, like Germany. Our manufacturing production peaked in 2018 and has plummeted since then due to high energy costs. We need to be open to technology and we need to use nuclear power plants again, because nuclear energy supply is carbon free.
On the AfD:
We are a conservative-libertarian party. We need to reduce bureaucracy. We need to free our firms, our companies, the individuals of these obnoxious, bureaucratic conditions here. We want to free the people of the state. I want to have independently thinking, well educated, self-confident people. I want to let them have freedom of speech and freedom of wealth.
On Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party:
The National Socialists were socialists. He was a communist and he considered himself a socialist. They imposed huge taxes, and nationalised the entire industry. After that terrible era, he was labelled Right and conservative. He was exactly the opposite. And we are exactly the opposite of him.
On taxes:
Germany has the highest taxes of all OECD countries. A normal German employee works more than half a year for the state, by paying taxes and social security. However, the dysfunctioning state does not provide for security.
On education:
We have an insane, woke, leftist socialist agenda in our educational system. So the young people, they don’t learn anything in school. They just learn about gender studies. In the international PISA survey, Germany plummeted, because the survey showed that young people are not able to properly do maths, or speak or write German. Our entire educational system has been deteriorating. That is also the reason why young people vote for us now.
On migration:
Since 2015 we have had an influx of almost seven million people. Our state allows people to throw away their passports before they cross our borders that are not protected and controlled. So 57% of the people coming into our country through our open borders, throw away their papers. Why do they do that? Because once they enter our country, they cannot be deported anymore.
On Jews living in Germany:
We need to take responsibility as a German nation state to protect Jewish life. Jewish people in our country are exposed right now to Muslim crime. They are not safe here anymore. We have Palestinian demonstrations on the streets of Berlin. A Jew cannot walk through the streets anymore. The AfD is the only protector of the Jewish people here in Germany, because all the other parties let millions of people in, and let them commit crimes on our streets.
On the war in Ukraine:
The war in Ukraine is a big danger to our national security. The conflict has the potential to escalate big time. Towards a nuclear exchange. European governments have no strategy, no red lines, no foreign and security policy towards Russia, towards Ukraine. And they don’t have the military power. My hope is that Donald Trump can end this terrible war.
The conversation has, to date, been accessed by more than five million X users. A highly anticipated discussion, it was made more so when publicised by the fact that the Brussels Eurocrats, as well as a number of high-profile politicians, had openly threatened Elon Musk and his platform.The chat will likely have little impact on the German elections themselves, but the attention it received from the EUserves as a stark reminder that the liberal censorship machine is on the warpath, clamping down on dissenting alternative voices.
