Elon Musk makes Germany’s far right pathetic again

Just how cringe-worthy was it? Even the right-wing nutjobs who tuned into the much-ballyhooed livestream got bored.

“Talk about remigration for God’s sake,” cried one exasperated listener in the comments, as Musk and AfD leader Alice Weidel veered into a longwinded discourse about the universe. 

Both Musk and Weidel had relentlessly promoted the event after the South-African-born billionaire's controversial endorsement of the far-right party in December. 

Musk's support of the AfD on X ahead of Germany’s February election fuelled speculation that the livestream might violate European rules for election advertising on social media platforms. 

In the run-up to the livestream, European officials, including French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, brought an outright ban of X into play. Two major German labour unions as well as the German Constitutional Court announced on Thursday that they were leaving X. The unions accused the site of spreading disinformation and being "undemocratic," charges Musk rejects outright.

Yes" 

Little of that controversy featured in Thursday's talk. 

Weidel, whom the livestream introduced as the “leading candidate to run Germany” (a complete fabrication considering that her party is more than 10 points behind the Christian Democrats), audibly struggled to get her message across in English. 

She repeatedly grasped for words, at one point even asking an aide for the correct term for “nationalising”. At one stage, she erroneously referred to Christian Democrat leader Friedrich Merz, the election frontrunner, as her “running mate”. 

Her wooden English was met with scorn in the comments. “Her English is terrible...”, a typical intervention read. 

Putting on a brave face, the AfD's front woman rushed through her standard talking points – from reviving nuclear power in Germany to fighting constraints on free speech.

Aside from making the bizarre, ahistoric claim that Hitler was a left-wing communist, Weidel barely touched on the most controversial subjects, including her party’s commitment to pulling Germany out of the EU and tough views on migration. 

She appeared most comfortable playing the role of sycophant. 

“I believe critical feedback is a gift,” Musk interjected at one point. 

“Yes,” Weidel responded. 

“Yes, yes, yes,” the billionaire parroted. 

The livestream demonstrated a pronounced lack of sync and familiarity between the two, often leading to awkward silences.

At the beginning, Musk introduced the AfD leader incorrectly as “Alice Veedel” (her surname is pronounced Vidle) and later went on to praise Germany’s education system – just after Weidel had delivered a scathing critique of it. 

After an extremely long hour, Weidel (or is it now "Veedel?") prompted Musk to launch into an extended monologue on his visions for space exploration and philosophy. She remained silent, save a few exclamations of awe, clearly happy that she didn't have to speak any more English. 

“Wow,” she fawned repeatedly. 

“I don’t know right now [how] to continue,” she admitted. “These words are so beautiful."