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.

  • themaninblack@lemmy.world
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    15 hours 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.

  • nutsack@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    vietnamese people think elon musk and donald trump are right about everything because they are smart because they are rich and because america is a democracy

    they are deified, basically. just like ho chi minh

  • acargitz@lemmy.ca
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    19 hours 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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      40 minutes 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.

    • pyre@lemmy.world
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      13 hours 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.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      14 hours 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.

  • Sam_Bass@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    Musk reminds me of that Blofeld character that was in one of those lethal weapon flicks

    • b161@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      20 hours 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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      21 hours 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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        14 hours 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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        9 hours 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.

  • WeUnite@lemm.ee
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    1 day 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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        1 day 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.

        • ms.lane@lemmy.world
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          22 hours ago

          Bluesky is not better, it’s at best a sidegrade and possibly worse.

          • Maxxie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            14 hours 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.

          • splinter@lemm.ee
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            21 hours 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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              15 hours 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.

              • splinter@lemm.ee
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                3 hours ago

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

                Do you have citations to support any of your claims?

  • cows_are_underrated@feddit.org
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    1 day 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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      14 hours 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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        13 hours ago

        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.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    1 day 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

    • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day 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”

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          7 hours ago

          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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            20 minutes 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

          • 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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          1 day ago

          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.

      • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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        1 day 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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      1 day ago

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