Over the course of almost an hour and a half of conversation, Alice Weidel and the billionaire, owner of Tesla, SpaceX and X, amicably debated the topics that most concern the populist right. The conversation ended up going to… Adolf Hitler
“My hope for your administration is that it ends the war (…) Basically, only you can stop it.”
The phrase is from Alice Weidel, leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a German far-right party. One would expect it to have been directed at Donald Trump, but no. I told Elon Musk.
It may have been a mere slip of the tonguebut it is in line with what many around the world, and apparently Weidel herself, think: it is Musk who will rule the next American administration.
Amidst much laughter, and over the course of just over an hour of 20 minutes on platform And they agreed on everything from education to energy, from immigration to the war in Ukraine.
It was during the discussion of this last topic that Weidel addressed Musk as if he were going to be the American president. The AfD leader harshly criticized European leaders, including Germany, accusing them of having “no strategies” to combat Russia and of having left Europe militarily dependent on the USA.
“I think this conflict will be resolved under Trump,” said Musk. “The longer the conflict drags on, the more Ukraine weakens in relation to Russia and thousands of people die for nothing.”
For Weidel, the war exposed the failure of the energy policies of the German governments “of the last 20 to 25 years”, namely Angela Merkel, who was in power for 16 years, and the “traffic light coalition”, led by Olaf Scholz, who imploded at the end of last year.
“Merkel ruined our country. It changed our backbone in energetic terms. Germany is the only industrial country that has shut down its nuclear power plants. We only have solar and wind energy. An industrial country cannot run on solar and wind energy alone,” said the far-right leader, who says the AfD supports the diversification of energy sources.
Musk agreed. Despite considering himself a supporter of renewable energy, the tycoon argues that a country’s energy mix should include “some fossil fuels and a lot of nuclear”.
Around 200,000 people listened to the conversation between Elon Musk and Alice Weidel (Christopher Neundorf/EPA)
“It was a tragedy that they closed the nuclear plants in Germany,” said Musk.
“When the supply of Russian gas was cut off, they closed the last nuclear power plant in Germany. You have to be very stupid or hate your country”, replied Weidel.
Another point that Weidel pointed out to Angela Merkel’s administration was the opening of borders to immigrants. But, perhaps surprisingly, she did not dwell much on the issue, only mentioning that immigrants destroy their documents before crossing the border into Germany because, claims the AfD leader, undocumented immigrants “cannot be deported”. Musk said that the same practice occurred on the other side of the Atlantic and that crime had increased “drastically” in recent years, but he also didn’t say much about the subject. In contrast, the alleged “wokismo” present in the German education system has been well debated.
In a typical speech by a leader of the populist right, Alice Weidel states that “nowadays” schools are indoctrinating children with a “political agenda”. woke left-wing” and that young people don’t learn anything other than “gender studies”. Weidel also lamented, without citing any evidence, that currently it is no longer necessary to write correct German to progress in the education system.
“Young people vote for us because they want to have a good education. We have to return to a system based on merit and abandon all these socialist practices”, wished Weidel. “Wow. The mind virus woke It really affected Germany”, replied the owner of the X.
Freedom of speech was another topic and the friendly conversation inevitably turned to Adolf Hitler.
“The first thing Hitler did (when he came to power) was to limit freedom of speech. That’s why she was successful,” said Weidel, who then went into a spiral that ended with her classifying Adolf Hilter as a communist, in an attempt to detach the AfD from the label of successor party to the NSDAP.
“The Nazis were socialists, Hitler was a communist. The Nazis financed private companies, nationalized the entire industry. The left’s greatest success was to label Adolf Hitler as a right-wing and conservative man. He was a communist and a socialist. (…) We (AfD) are a libertarian conservative party, we want to free people from the State. We want a minimal State, freedom of expression, freedom to generate wealth”, added Weidel.
Alice Weidel during a session at the Bundestag, December 15, 2021 (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)
And because anyone who talks about Hitler talks about anti-Semitism, the leader of the far-right party complained that her political force is wrongly characterized as anti-Semitic. Although she does not declare her full support for Israel in the conflict against Hamas, claiming that the conflict in the Middle East “becomes increasingly complex as you read more about it”, Alice Weidel says she unequivocally supports the existence of the Jewish State, who must be protected, just like the Jews in Germany.
“Germany must protect the Jews in our country, as they are no longer safe here due to Muslim crime. With all the demonstrations by Palestinians in Berlin, a Jew can no longer walk in safety. The AfD is the only protector of the Jewish people in Germany, all the other parties let millions of people in and let them commit crimes.”
Weidel says, however, that he empathizes with civilians in the Gaza Strip. “I opened Google Maps to see the Gaza Strip. It is closed there, without resources, the water supply could be cut off at any time. This won’t work.”
Musk agreed and even gave a three-step solution to the conflict. “There is no other option than to eliminate those who want to eliminate the State of Israel. We must also correct the education of Palestinians, to prevent them from learning to hate Israel, and to make the Palestinian areas prosperous. We need to help rebuild,” he explained.
The multimillionaire, who had already given his support to the AfD before, reiterated the appeal during the call. “If in Germany they are unhappy, I strongly recommend that they vote for the AfD. Weidel is a very sensible person, nothing scandalous is being proposed, it is just common sense. Only the AfD can save Germany, period. It takes the AfD come to power, otherwise things will get much worse in Germany.”
