German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person.
Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.”
“We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain good political advice.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
Musk, a key adviser to US president-elect Donald Trump, has not held back in expressing his contempt for Scholz, labeling him a “fool” last month after the collapse of Germany’s three-way coalition.
The billionaire Tesla Inc owner’s latest comment is a more direct intervention in German politics, coming two months before federal elections which Scholz is again contesting at the head of the Social Democratic Party.
However, Musk’s backing for the anti-immigration AfD is also an implicit rebuke of Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, whose center-right bloc leads the polls, making him the frontrunner to become the next German chancellor.
“I expressly say: All democratic parties in Germany see things differently,” Scholz said of Musk’s endorsement of the AfD, adding that his “judgment is not as balanced as the economic success” of his companies.
AfD support is at 19 percent in the latest poll by Infratest dimap, placing it second behind Merz’s conservative bloc with 33 percent. Scholz’s Social Democrats and his Greens coalition partner each have just 14 percent backing.
Still, the AfD has no chance of joining a government after the Feb. 23 vote, because all the other parties have ruled out any kind of cooperation.
AfD leader Alice Weidel, who is running as her party’s first-ever chancellor candidate, would probably be looking on with glee.
In a Bloomberg News interview this week, Weidel made clear that she is a fan of Trump, saying that she hopes he puts “an end to this terrible war in Ukraine,” because European governments are “not willing or capable of doing something like that.”
“We have huge hopes with his presidency,” she said.
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