Actually, Alice Weidel, chairwoman of the AfD and candidate for chancellor, didn’t have to say anything. The medium is already the message here. Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk is using his expensive Internet mouthpiece for intensive election advertising for the self-proclaimed Alternative for Germany. He doesn’t want to talk to other politicians. He recently called Chancellor Olaf Scholz a fool.
Musk had already announced aloud days ago that he was the only one who believed the party could get Germany out of its mess. Now it took barely 30 minutes in a conversation that was anything but confrontational and lasted just over an hour to get to the heart of his request once again. Only the AfD could save Germany. Weidel then simply replied “Yes”. She repeated it many times that evening, and so did Musk. They both laughed a lot. Once Weidel couldn’t stop giggling. If you wanted to understand the politician Alice Weidel better that evening, then there wasn’t much to gain. Just the usual slogans, but no insecurities. The human Alice Weidel appeared embarrassed several times.
The AfD leader spoke in English for over 70 minutes. She didn’t do this like a language professional, but with the self-confidence of an economist for whom this is simply normal. The AfD promised a German version even before it began. Such little things are likely to play a role in the next few days when it comes to whether the salon chat is unfair election advertising. That’s why 150 EU officials listened. Musk could have technically expanded the reach to reach more people.
The statistics recorded by X do not indicate this. A total of 1 million people listened for at least a few seconds, and at the peak there were around 200,000 users at the same time. Musk has 200 million followers. But they may be much less interested in his current European tour, with which he is drumming up a strong drumbeat for social change towards the right, than many fear.
Suddenly Alice Weidel started talking about Hitler
No one needs to introduce Musk in this country. But the AfD in the USA and other parts of the world does. Weidel dutifully explained her party’s intentions – and then things quickly became strange. It sounded like a synthesis of a CDU from the pre-reunification Federal Republic and an FDP freed from socio-political tirades (“We are a conservative-liberal force that stands for the freedom of the individual and against government over-regulation”). You are conservative and not right-wing extremist at all. Different from the alleged framing.
Weidel spoke of Adolf Hitler and how he was mistakenly misunderstood as a conservative when he was a “socialist dictator,” a communist (“Hitler was a communist in many ways; he nationalized companies and controlled the media”). Musk didn’t have much to counter the historical nonsense. He didn’t ask about party extremists like Björn Höcke. But in general he didn’t just act as a cue provider. When his counterpart raved about the supposedly failed energy policy, he politely agreed, only to then lecture for a longer period of time about solar energy.
However, the two of them threw balls at each other for minutes, which is something that goes badly in Germany. Weidel attacked former Chancellor Angela Merkel, Musk told how he had to have papers signed and stamped for a truck for his Tesla factory. When the AfD leader brought up the crime rate in Germany, the Tesla founder was quick to judge that both the United States and Germany were suffering from what he saw as blatant migrant crimes. Contradictions such as those in the comments to the talk were not included. There was also a brief discussion about the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Weidel was conspicuously silent about Israel’s responsibility for atrocities in the Gaza conflict. This is too complex for her to have a clear position.
Elon Musk and the question of God
At some point it was about Mars – and Musk, who soon wants to send astronauts to the red planet, was once again able to celebrate himself as a fantasist. Weidel listened reverently, once said “Wow” and seriously asked the X boss the crucial question. Musk responds that he has a physical view of reality, but is open to the idea that there is a God. Weidel confessed that she didn’t know exactly what to believe.
Due to the lack of hard topics, the conversation between the two of them seemed like a date between two people who at some point shyly started talking about the weather. After Musk’s, well, philosophical comments about God and the world, Weidel didn’t want to comment further. She thanked me well. The conversation was wonderful. In fact: 76 minutes of wonderful promotion for your party. But also 76 minutes of platitudes and dialogues, as one would expect from the regulars’ table. Or in discussions on X.