When Elon Musk endorsed the far-right Alternative für Deutschland on X as the only party that could “save Germany”, followed by an opinion article in Die Welt promoting the AfD in the forthcoming federal elections the backlash was swift. “Germany must not tolerate Musk’s transgressions,” declared the publisher of the liberal newspaper Tagesspiegel. “How did Elon Musk’s election propaganda for the AfD make it into Welt?” asked another commentator, accusing Welt’s publisher, Axel Springer, of betraying its own principles. The Spiegel columnist Marina Kormbaki labelled Musk’s intervention the “breaking of a taboo”.

The outrage was justified. Musk’s apocalyptic rhetoric and alignment with forces often labelled extremist are deeply unsettling in a country still grappling with the weight of its 20th-century atrocities. His political meddling – from the US to the UK and now Germany – follows a disturbing pattern of self-aggrandisement cloaked in dangerous ideology.

His immense wealth and global influence, magnified by his acquisition of the social media platform X, as well as his strong ties to authoritarian figures including Donald Trump, make this interference a brazen intrusion that strikes at the heart of democratic integrity. In Germany, where foreign meddling in domestic politics is anathema, this audacity rightly struck a nerve. As the vice-chancellor, Robert Habeck, put it: “Hands off our democracy, Mr. Musk!”

At the same time, Musk’s views are hardly a surprise. His rightward drift has been years in the making, culminating – some might say, logically – in his support for a party that mirrors some of his core obsessions: nationalist salvation fantasies, natalism, austerity dogmatism. His endorsement aligns with a broader shift in Germany’s public discourse, where far-right narratives have been steadily normalised in both conservative and liberal circles.

Musk’s argument in the article itself was so simplistic it sparked speculation about whether it might have been AI-generated. His reasoning hinged on praising the AfD’s “political realism” and deregulatory agenda, coupled with........

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