Last week, Elon Musk announced a live interview with Alice Weidel, the leader of the Alternative fur Deutschland (Afd) party, to take place on his very own X (formerly Twitter) platform on 9 January. This will mark the apex of a growing endorsement that Musk, the soon-to-be co-leader of the Department for the Government Efficiency (DOGE), has made to the far-right in the last few months. On more than one occasion, Musk has commented on X that “only the AfD can save Germany.”
There are several angles to be considered for this crucial issue. First, Germany has just called its first snap election since 1983 as a result of the collapse of the Jamaica coalition between the SPD, the Greens, and the Free Liberals, given the growing divergence between Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Finance Minister Christian Lindner, which led to Lindner’s sacking. The election, taking place on February 24th, will likely see the victory of the CDU/CSU led by Friedrick Merz, but with the likely need to form a coalition to govern.
As has happened in Germany’s recent state elections, a good performance by the AfD (and its left-wing counterparty BSW party) could massively complicate the possibility of creating viable governing coalitions post-election. Musk’s interference in yet another election or political process may therefore result in severe consequences for Germany and, as a result, for the entire EU, considering the weight Germany carries within the EU organisation, and given the difficulty Germany is currently facing in re-defining its business model.
Secondly, as we will discuss in our upcoming in-depth analysis of this phenomenon, Musk is not new to this sort of interference in other countries’ politics. In the name of free speech – which for him is just a more elegant name for mis-information – Musk has heavily interfered with British politics. He first did so when he de-facto incited for civil war at the time when riots exploded in the UK last summer. Then he interfered in British politics again when he pledged to donate nearly USD 80 million to Reform UK (the former Brexit Party led by Nigel Farage) to support its political activities.
Musk has also intervened more than once in Italian politics, by calling out the judges that were prosecuting Matteo Salvini or had ordered the repatriation of migrants unlawfully sent to improvised detention centres in Albania. Only Italian President Mattarella had the strength to respond to Musk so far, by reminding him that the Italian judiciary is independent from political power (unlike in the US, where judges are elected), and that the Republic is perfectly able to take care of itself without undue interference from abroad.
After taking over the US presidency, with his buddy Peter Thiel, all this activism in support of far-right parties across the globe reminds us of the role played by Steve Bannon during the first Trump presidency. At that time, the ideologue of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, which highjacked the Republican party and transformed it into a populist acolyte far away from the institutional party of its origins, worked hard to put together a “Populist International” able to unite under the same roof the far-right parties of Germany (AfD), France (Rassémblement National), Italy (Lega and Brothers of Italy), and several Eastern European countries, all of which were suspected, or proven, to be financed by Russia. Eventually Bannon was sacked by Trump, when Bannon’s positions became untenable even for Trump, and he was convicted to four months in prison for contempt of Congress, for lying to the US legislators during the hearings on the assault on Capitol Hill on January 6th, 2021.
Musk’s activism in foreign policy is clearly reminiscent of Bannon’s work during Trump’s first term in office, as Musk is becoming the new ideologue of Trump, a sort of Bannon 2.0, with the addition of the tech component and virtually unlimited financial firepower. It is yet to be seen whether he will follow in Bannon’s path, and eventually fall out with Trump during his second mandate.
