Elon Musk and AfD chancellor Alice Weidel’s X chat investigated by German parliament over 'donation' fears

UK politics is already dealing with Twitter/X owner Elon Musk wading into it with his abusive tweets aimed at Jess Phillips and his criticism of the Labour government’s refusal to hold a national inquiry into grooming gangs and child sexual exploitation – and now Germany’s parliament is investigating his X livestream with parliamentary candidate Alice Weidel.

Musk, who has declared the far-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) “the only hope for Germany”, held an interview on his social media platform on Thursday (January 9) with the party’s candidate for chancellor, Alice Weidel.

During the conversation, Musk told listeners: “People really need to get behind AfD, otherwise things are going to get very, very much worse in Germany. I think Alice Weidel is a very reasonable person. Nothing outrageous is being proposed.”

As for Weidel, she issued a number of alarming remarks about Adolf Hitler, claiming the genocidal dictator “was a communist” whereas her party is “conservative libertarian”.

She said: “The biggest success [of other parties] after that terrible era in our history was to label Adolf Hitler as right and conservative. He was exactly the opposite.

“He wasn’t a conservative, he wasn’t a libertarian. He was a communist socialist guy.”

Almost all historians disagree, instead arguing he was far-right and an eliminationalist nationalist.

And while Hitler branded Nazism as “national socialism”, an article in the online encyclopaedia Britannica stresses Nazis were not socialists in “any meaningful way”, and that in April 1993, “communists, socialists, democrats and Jews were purged from the German civil service, and trade unions were outlawed the following month”.

Also, given that the German federal elections are coming up next month, concerns are being raised around the conversation having an undue influence on the vote.

German news outlet Die Welt reports a spokesman for the Bundestag, when asked about whether the livestream could constitute an illegal party donation, said: “The Bundestag administration is currently carrying out a clarification of the facts in the present case.”

Yikes.

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