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.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    It’s important to note that right after saying this…

    A German AFD supporter who retweets Musk drove into a Christmas market in a terrorist attack

    Germany has stricter laws about inciting violence, it’s a long shot but maybe he’ll get charges

  • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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    5 days 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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      5 days 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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      5 days 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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      5 days 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.

    • b161@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      5 days ago

      It doesn’t matter to him. All he knows that he’s a Dark Enlightenment fascist white supremacist. The poors and non-whites must die. Fascist governments must be in power everywhere so he can have his world where he is king, he has robots to do his bidding and can try to live forever.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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      5 days ago

      His knowledge is mostly restricted to the years 1933-1945.

      He didn’t read the ending. No one tell him the spoiler.

      • Roflmasterbigpimp@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        How about a Life reenactment?

        I, as Citizen of Germany by birth and Law, invite Elon Musk to Nürnberg. We bring some Judges and a Rope.

      • J4g2F@lemmy.ml
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        5 days ago

        To be honest the ending for rich capitalist(the same that helped Hitler in power) in west Germany was pretty good. They profit heavily during the war and afterwards the mostly just kept there companies continuing to profit.

    • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      He knows what benifits him. That’s the entirety of his motivations. Evil greedy assholes are quite dull, he just knows what makes him more money and more power.

  • themaninblack@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    There is nothing surprising about a white South African promoting a racist political party. White South Africans are the most openly and unabashedly racist people on the planet.

    • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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      Matches up with history. Hitler had a giant portrait of Henry Ford in his office. American racism, genocide, and capitalism was a major inspiration for the Nazis

  • WeUnite@lemm.ee
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    6 days ago

    No country is safe from Elon Musk’s election interference. It’s urgent that we boycott Twitter and Tesla. If you have a Twitter account do the following now:

    1. Send a DM to your favorite accounts and urge them to stop using Twitter.
    2. (If you haven’t already) register for Bluesky.
    3. Make a Tweet saying you are no longer using Twitter.
    4. Tell your friends to follow the same instructions.

    These could take as little as five minutes of your time but it will make a huge difference because of the ripple effect. When one person leaves it will automatically incentivize your friends to follow you. You have the power to make a difference.

      • bss03@infosec.pub
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        6 days ago

        Either is better than X/Twitter for now. Bluesky is “easier” for many people. I prefer Mastodon myself, but there’s a bridge so I can follow Bluesky profiles (and vice-versa) which is nice.

          • bss03@infosec.pub
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            4 days ago

            No. They use something called the “AT Protocol” and that’s about all I know about it.

            I imagine some sort of compatibility layer could be designed, but I don’t know how much fidelity you could preserve.

          • splinter@lemm.ee
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            6 days ago

            This is false. It still has areas in which it could improve, but it is a thousand times better than twitter.

            • ms.lane@lemmy.world
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              5 days ago

              It’s ownership is a shadowy cabal of Billionaires (as opposed to a mutually federated network of independent sites (Mastodon) or a single, crazed, billionaire) and it’s already proven it will censor and shape discussions how those billionaires see fit.

              • Jyek@sh.itjust.works
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                4 days ago

                Shadowy cabal? They literally list their board of directors on their FAQ…

                Jay Graber; Jeremie Miller, the inventor of Jabber/XMPP; Mike Masnick; and Kinjal Shah.

                What about a group of public figures is a shadowy cabal?

              • splinter@lemm.ee
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                5 days ago

                If true, that would still make it not quite as bad as Twitter.

                Do you have citations to support any of your claims?

          • Maxxie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            5 days ago

            It’s at least half a decade earlier on the enshittification timeline.

            It is better than xitter right now (almost anything is) but the earlier you quit the black-box-algorithm-skinnerbox needle, the better.

  • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
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    6 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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      6 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.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Well Elon isn’t Jewish, gay, roma, disabled, Germsn, polish, French, Italian, Russian, British, …or a poor American so it isn’t his problem

    • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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      6 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”

        • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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          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.

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          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.

          • Taleya@aussie.zone
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            5 days 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

            • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              4 days ago

              Yeah, I definitely read it the correct way, but I can see how someone who isn’t a native speaker could be confused by the wording. “You know shit” just sounds weird, especially after such a negative prior sentence.

              • Taleya@aussie.zone
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                4 days ago

                Fun part is that only really applies in the written format - spoken it would have been incredibly clear!

                (Enflish isn’t an inflection language my arse} )

          • monolalia@lemmy.world
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            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).

      • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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        6 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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      6 days ago

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

  • cows_are_underrated@feddit.org
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    6 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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      5 days 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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        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.

  • slingstone@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Save Germany from what? Being a successful, modern country that takes care of its people?

    • Miaou@jlai.lu
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      Ugh, I must live in alternate-reality Germany. Not like AfD can improve things, but come on

      • slingstone@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        I genuinely apologize for my ignorance. Germany looks like a damned paradise of free healthcare and other social welfare programs from the States. What issues are you facing over there?

        • Khaliso@slrpnk.net
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          4 days ago

          Mainly missed opportunities due to inefficiencies and conflicts of interest in politics I’d say?

          • Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            4 days ago

            The biggest issue is a lack of investments due to us putting a block of taking on new government debt into our constitution so there never is enough money to invest in things like the infrastructure. That and too much bureaucracy in everything.

        • raef@lemmy.world
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          Just want to clarify that healthcare is not free; there are insurance companies and coverage is paid for.

          The difference is they are more regulated and everyone must have insurance coverage