German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has slammed “disgusting” Elon Musk for publicly backing a far-right party and intervening in the country’s politics.
Mr Scholz unleashed the scathing attack after the tech billionaire suggested Germans need to get over their “past guilt” about the Nazis just hours before the Auswchitz anniversary earlier this week.
The German leader told reporters at a campaign event in Berlin: “I’m so angry about Elon Musk intervening for the far right and Elon Musk also not acting adequately to this killing of so many Jews and other people in Europe done by Germans in the past.
“This is the historic responsibility we will continue to take in the future as well.”
Musk’s controversial remarks were made during a video address to the far-right German party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).
Blasting his comments, Mr Scholz said: “If you look at the print press in Germany, you will see that there are many billionaires that also intervene in politics.
“That’s not new. What is new is that he is intervening in favor of right-wing politicians all over Europe. And this is really disgusting. And it is not good for the democratic development in all the European Union.”
The US based-billionaire and close ally of new US President Donald Trump had said in his address to the AfD it was “good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything”.
He added that “children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their great-grandparents” and claimed there was “too much focus on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that”.
The Tesla owner has called the AfD the country’s “last vestige of hope” and invited its leader, Alice Weidel, to a live chat on X ahead of the general election in February.
He first signalled his support for the party in an opinion column of a German national newspaper – where he praised the AfD’s anti-immigration and low-tax policies, claiming they could stop Germany from “becoming a shadow of its former self.”.
Mr Scholz is not the only one to slam Musk for publicly backing the far-right German party
The Green Party’s Robert Habeck sent a furious warning to Musk, telling Der Spiegel: “Hands off our democracy, Mr. Musk!”
Opposition leader Friedrich Merz also called Musk’s remarks “intrusive and pretentious”.
