Elon Musk on Thursday agreed with Germany’s far-right party leader that Adolf Hitler was a communist and that left-wing groups supporting the Palestinian cause have more in common with the Nazis than with his own party. Agreed.
A very strange and disinformation-filled conversation between Musk and Alternative for Germany (AfD) leader Alice Weidel took place on X. The conversation comes after weeks of efforts by Musk to boost a far-right party with deep ties to Neo. -Supports Nazism and is being monitored for possible extremism by Germany’s own intelligence services.
“(Hitler) was a communist, he considered himself a socialist,” Weidell said in response to Musk’s question about media reports linking the AfD to Nazism.
“The greatest success after that terrible period in our history was labeling Adolf Hitler as right-wing and conservative; he was just the opposite,” Weidel said. “He wasn’t a conservative or a liberal, he was a communist and a socialist, whereas we are the opposite.”
“That’s right,” Musk replied.
Hitler, who as leader of the German Empire was responsible for the invasion of the Soviet Union and the enslavement and death of millions of his people, repeatedly described communism as an enemy of the German state in his autobiography, Mein Kampf. He believed that Marxism was a Jewish conspiracy to control Germany and the world.
Weidel also compared the Nazi party’s views to those of modern left-wing political groups that support the Palestinians in the face of what a United Nations committee calls crimes against humanity by Israel. She said this after her AfD colleagues were seen attending a secret meeting last month organized by former members of a neo-Nazi extremist group known for burning Israeli flags. “The AfD is the only protector of the Jewish people here in Germany.”
Weidel is the AfD’s candidate for chancellor in Germany’s snap election next month. She previously worked in the financial industry and lived in Switzerland with her Sri Lankan wife and their children, and has been seen as a relatively moderate face within the party.
This is something Musk addressed in an op-ed he wrote in a German newspaper last month.
“The portrayal of the AfD as a right-wing extremist group is patently false given that party leader Alice Weidel has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka,” Musk wrote. “Does that sound like Hitler to you? Please!”
Ahead of Thursday’s talks, the EU said it would monitor the event to see if it was artificially promoted to German voters, a violation of the region’s broader digital services law rules. A European Commission spokesperson told WIRED that the European Commission does not comment on the content of the livestream.
Weidel noted that the EU was obsessed with the conversation, claiming that 150 EU Commission staff were listening in and that the DSA was a censorship tool, adding: . He turned off free speech. He controls the media and without it he would never have succeeded. ”