On Thursday, Elon Musk agreed with the leader of a far-right German political party that Adolf Hitler was a communist and that leftist groups that support Palestinian causes have more in common with the Nazis than with his own party.
A deeply strange and misinformed conversation took place between Musk and Alice Weidel, the leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) on X-Day. The conversation comes after weeks of Musk trying to bolster the far-right party, which has deep ties to Neo. – Nazism and has been monitored by Germany’s own intelligence services due to suspected extremism.
“[Hitler] Asked by Musk about media reports linking the AfD to Nazism, Widel said: “He was a communist and considered himself a socialist.”
“The greatest achievement after that terrible period in our history was to call Adolf Hitler a rightist[-wing] And he was the exact opposite, he was conservative, Widel said. He was not a conservative, he was not a libertarian, he was a communist and socialist man, and we are the opposite.
Musk replied: True.
In his biography I am KampfHitler—who as the leader of the German Reich was responsible for invading the Soviet Union and enslaving and killing millions of its citizens—repeatedly described communism as the enemy of the German nation. He believed that Marxism was a Jewish conspiracy to control Germany and the world.
Weidel also contrasted the views of the Nazi Party with those of modern left-wing political groups that support Palestine in the face of what a UN commission has called crimes against humanity by Israel. As his AfD colleagues attended a secret meeting last month organized by former members of a neo-Nazi militant group known for burning Israeli flags, he said: “The AfD is the only protector of the Jews here in Germany.”
Weidel is the AfD’s candidate for chancellor in Germany’s snap election next month. As someone who used to work in finance and lives in Switzerland with his Sri Lankan wife and their children, he has been presented as a relatively moderate figure for the party.
That’s what Musk addressed in an article he wrote for a German newspaper last month.
“The portrayal of the AfD as far-right is patently false, given that the party’s leader, Alice Weidel, has a gay partner from Sri Lanka,” Musk wrote.
Ahead of Thursday’s talks, the European Union said it would monitor the event to see if it was being artificially promoted to voters in Germany, a violation of the region’s sweeping Digital Services Act. A spokesperson for the European Commission told WIRED that it would not comment on the content of the live stream.
Weidel pointed to the EU’s preoccupation with the conversation, claiming 150 officials at the EU Commission were listening in, then claimed the DSA was a censorship tool, before adding: “You know what Adolf Hitler did? It shut down free speech. “He controlled the media and without it he would never have succeeded.”
