US billionaire Elon Musk backed Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) in a guest opinion piece for Germany’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper published online on Saturday that prompted the commentary editor to resign in protest.
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In the commentary, published in German by the flagship paper of the Axel Springer media group, Musk expanded on his post on social media last week claiming that “only the AfD can save Germany”.
“The portrayal of the AfD as right-wing extremist is clearly false, considering that Alice Weidel, the party’s leader, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka! Does that sound like Hitler to you? Please!” Musk said in the piece.
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has classified the AfD at the national level as a suspected extremism case since 2021.
Soon after the piece was published online, the editor of the opinion section, Eva Marie Kogel, wrote on social media that she had submitted her resignation, with a link to the commentary.
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“Democracy and journalism thrive on freedom of expression. This includes dealing with polarising positions and classifying them journalistically,” the newspaper’s editor-in-chief designate Jan Philipp Burgard and Ulf Poschardt, who takes over as publisher on January 1, told Reuters.