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The AfD's shocking victory in Germany, why Elon Musk is excited

2026-09-14 22:20:58Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
The AfD's shocking victory in Germany, why Elon Musk is excited
Alice Weidel and Elon Musk

Nick Robins-Early – The Guardian

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party shook up European politics this week after a landslide victory in a German state election, moving just a few seats away from forming the first far-right government at the state level since World War II.

Elon Musk expressed enthusiasm.

“Gut gemacht! (well done), Musk wrote on X a week ago, congratulating AfD chairwoman Alice Weidel. It was one of at least a dozen posts the Tesla and SpaceX CEO made about the AfD after the result.

The AfD returned the compliment, with Saxony-Anhalt leader Ulrich Siegmund thanking Musk for his support. Siegmund, who wants German schools to focus less on responsibility for World War II and whose top staff includes four former members of a banned neo-Nazi youth group, called Musk a “visionary.”

Musk has become a central figure in the global far right in recent years, using his influence to support anti-immigrant activists, illiberal leaders and nationalist parties. Alongside his obsession with racial issues in the UK, much of his attention has been focused on the AfD. The strong results in the Saxony-Anhalt elections and Musk’s joy at their victory have revived attention on his ties to the party.

Musk’s ties to the AfD and German far-right extremists predate the vote in Saxony-Anhalt and coincide with his public shift to the right. His views on immigration, politics, and race, expressed consistently in X, have become indistinguishable from many of the AfD’s policies over the years. By promoting the AfD and receiving their adoration in return, Musk and the party have developed a symbiotic relationship to spread far-right ideas in both Germany and the US.

The strengthening of the international far right

As Musk became more involved in politics in 2024, supporting Donald Trump's reelection with over $100 million of his wealth, he formed alliances with several other international far-right leaders who hold anti-immigration and oppositional stances towards democratic institutions.

Musk appeared on stage with Argentine President Javier Miel, known for wielding a chainsaw, presented an award to Italy's ultraconservative Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, then attacked Italian judges who ruled on the rights of immigrants and gave a live speech at a rally by British anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson, where Musk declared that immigration was causing the "destruction of Britain."

He also connected with Naomi Seibt, a German climate crisis skeptic and anti-immigration activist who frequently posted on X and was 24 at the time. Musk began sending her personal messages after seeing her posts, Seibt told journalist Paul Ronzheimer of Axel Springer's Global Reporters network, and she promoted the AfD in their conversations.

In late 2024, Musk wrote an opinion piece for the German media outlet Die Welt, expressing his support for the AfD. He argued that Germany was on the verge of an “economic and cultural collapse” that could only be resolved by the AfD, which he called the country’s “last glimmer of hope.” Musk added that the party was not extremist, citing the example of its leader, Weidel, having a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka.

"Does this look like Hitler to you?" Musk wrote.

As Musk assumed a prominent role in the second Trump administration in early 2025, he used his platform and political clout to further strengthen the AfD. In January of that year, Musk hosted a live broadcast for Weidel, which researchers say gave her a huge boost on the platform and led to increased coverage in German media.

“Musk really had an effect on setting the agenda of the traditional media in Germany,” said Jan Rau, a researcher at the Research Institute for Social Cohesion and the Leibniz Institute for Media Research. “That was very clear. There was an explosion of attention from the traditional media about Weidel at that moment, and a lot of that attention was directly related to Musk.”

Weeks after his Weidel broadcast, Musk appeared again via livestream at an AfD rally. Just days after he caused controversy by giving a fascist-style salute at a Trump inauguration rally, Musk told an AfD crowd in Germany that there was “too much focus on the guilt of the past and we need to move beyond it.” His comments drew condemnation from Jewish leaders and accusations that he was trying to normalize right-wing extremism.

The limits of Musk's influence

His closeness to Trump and prominent role in the White House after the 2024 election increased Musk's political power, as well as foreign governments' fears that he was interfering in their national affairs.

After buying Twitter in 2022, Musk made several changes that helped reinforce divisive far-right policies, such as those of the AfD. He reinstated previously banned accounts, including Austrian pro-AfD and anti-immigration activist Martin Sellner, who has taken credit for introducing nationalist “remigration” policies and often promoted international right-wing accounts through retweets.

“The changes Musk made to the platform made it much easier for the far-right to communicate,” Rau said. “This is beneficial for the AfD in many ways.”

But researchers, including Rau, argue that the right-wing bubble Musk has created on X has its limits. Only about 5% of Germans use X to find news, according to a Reuters Institute poll in 2026, and many prominent figures in the country have publicly abandoned the platform. While some of Musk’s support for the AfD has caught the attention of mainstream media, most of it in recent months has remained limited to his captive audience on X.

Today, Musk is deeply unpopular in Germany. A YouGov poll last year showed that only 19% of the country had a positive opinion of the billionaire, while even fewer, just 13%, found his efforts to influence German politics acceptable. Even within the AfD, Musk is not an entirely welcome presence.

“Musk is not always helpful,” said Oliver Marsh, an independent researcher and former member of the nonprofit Algorithm Watch. “Many party members are traditional German nationalists and do not approve of an American billionaire interfering in German politics.”

Although the rise of the AfD has more to do with Germany’s domestic politics and social dynamics than Musk, that hasn’t stopped him from taking some credit for their success. Musk retweeted a comment from a right-wing German media pundit who claimed that his ownership of X had caused a “change of atmosphere” that led to the AfD’s victory.

Musk defends AfD as 'extreme center'

In the days following the AfD's victory in the Saxony-Anhalt state election, Musk not only celebrated the result but also tried to claim that the party was not far-right but ideologically moderate. He tweeted that the party, which Germany's domestic intelligence agency had labeled a far-right group last year, should be considered "extreme center."

Musk also objected to US media portrayals that labeled the AfD as far-right, despite the party's well-documented views on immigration, Islam, and LGBTQ+ rights. He posted several responses to the Wall Street Journal and CBS News after the election, accusing them of using the term "far right."

“You are lying by calling the AfD 'far right',” Musk responded to a CBS News post on X, adding in another post that “'far right' is a propaganda term.”

The AfD platform includes banning public displays of Islamic beliefs; opposing same-sex marriage and adoption, despite Weidel having a female partner from Sri Lanka with whom he is raising children; emphasizing German ethnic identity and calling for mass deportations. AfD leaders have drawn criticism over the years for downplaying the Holocaust and provocative references to Nazism, with one of the party's top members convicted in 2024 for using a slogan from the Nazi paramilitary wing during a rally.

Weidel has meanwhile claimed that there is "a holy war against the German population" calling for "remigration", a term for mass deportations, once used by right-wing extremists and white nationalists, which has now been embraced by nativist parties as well as Musk and Donald Trump.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz reacted to the AfD's victory this week by warning that the party's true intentions amounted to ethnic cleansing, a characterization the far-right party denied.

"If what is being advocated here, namely 'remigration', were to become a reality, it would be nothing more than a synonym for ethnic cleansing based on origin and skin color," Merz said.

Musk again defended the AfD, reposting a user criticizing Merz's accusation in front of his over 241 million followers.

Musk's stances, which include a fixation on race and vocal opposition to immigration, have become increasingly similar to those of Weidel and the AfD.

"Anyone who opposes remigration is a traitor," he posted in July.


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