Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk caused a stir after endorsing Germany's far-right party in a major newspaper ahead of key parliamentary elections in the Western European country, prompting the paper's opinion editor to resign in protest.
Germany will vote in snap elections on Feb. 23 after Chancellor Olaf Scholz's three-party government coalition collapsed last month in a dispute over how to revitalize the country's stagnating economy.
Musk's guest op-ed for world on sunday – a sister publication of POLITICAL owned by the Axel Springer group, published in German over the weekend, it was the second time this month that it supported the Alternative for Germany, or AfD.
“The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is the last spark of hope for this country,” Musk wrote in his translated comment.
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He went on to say that the far-right party “can lead the country toward a future where economic prosperity, cultural integrity and technological innovation are not just wishes, but reality.”
The CEO of Tesla Motors also wrote that his investment in Germany gave him the right to comment on the situation in the country.
The AfD is doing well in the polls, but its candidate for the top job, Alice Weidel, has no realistic chance of becoming chancellor because other parties refuse to work with the far-right party.
An ally of the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, the technology billionaire questioned the party's public image in his opinion article.
“The description of AfD as right-wing extremist is clearly false, considering that Alice Weidel, the party leader, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka! Does that sound like Hitler to you? Please!”
Musk's comment has led to a debate in the German media about the limits of free speech, and the newspaper's own opinion editor announced her resignation, specifically on Musk's social media platform, X.
“I always enjoyed leading the opinion section of WHEEL and WAMS. Today an article by Elon Musk appeared in world on sunday. I handed in my resignation yesterday after it was published,” wrote Eva Marie Kogel.
A critical article by the future editor-in-chief of the Hive The group, Jan Philipp Burgard, accompanied Musk's opinion piece.
“Musk's diagnosis is correct, but his therapeutic approach, that only the AfD can save Germany, is fatally wrong,” Burgard wrote.
In response to a request for comment from the German Press Agency, dpathe current editor-in-chief of Hive The group, Ulf Poschardt and Burgard, who will take over on January 1, said in a joint statement that the discussion about Musk's article was “very insightful.” “Democracy and journalism thrive thanks to freedom of expression.”
“This will continue to determine the compass of the 'world' in the future. we are going to develop the world even more decisively as a forum for such debates,” they wrote to dpa.
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