Sept. 30 (UPI) – Elon Musk is under fire after publicly backing a far-right political party in Germany, suggesting the current government should not be re-elected over its position on the current migrant crisis in Europe.

    • He thinks it’s controversial to not let migrants (men, women and children) drown and die, and has no problem promoting a party which is full of nazi sympathizers.

      He’s a sociopath, a racist and a fascist.

      And those likely aren’t even his worst characteristics, given the stories of sexual assault, links to Epstein, and the fact his father married his own daughter.

    • How is that? Is the AfD a Nazi party? Maybe you should let the Government of Germany know, since Nazi Parties are explicitly illegal there. Or maybe you should stop throwing around terms like “nazi” to mean “things you don’t like” unless you have something specifically actionable, that would get the party banned in Germany?

      • They are far right wing, and the AFD state division of Thüringen is considered extremist and is under surveillance of the Verfassungsschutz (domestic intelligence services). They have a lot of proven Nazis in their ranks and the party leadership does absolutely nothing against it.

        So IMHO it’s safe to use the blanket term Nazis for the AFD, although they of course don’t see themselves as such.

      • We had many years of a Nazi partin Germany called NPD they were finally banned a few years ago, but obviously another party filled that spot. The AFD was far right wing but not extremist and got fast more votes than the NPD ever got. After internal fights they went more far right after they thrown out their founder. Now they are even more extreme right and you can consider them a Nazi party. Banning the party is currently under consideration.

      • Is the AfD a Nazi party?

        Yes.

        Its a far right party that harbours nazis/fascists.

        Multiple rulings have passed that its legal to call some of their members those things.

        If not all of them are, they are associating with nazis. Which makes them nazis.

      • In Italy, the Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) party is perfectly legitimate despite the constitution banning the PNF party from being created again. Despite FdI having roots in the MSI (Italian social movement), having a fascist symbol in their logo and some of the politicians participating in far right manifestations and declared Mussolini was a good leader, it’s complicated to define what fascist, neofascist and post-fascist is. They have traits of fascism but also not, e.g. this time they are allied with US and not against them.

    • The fact that this gets media coverage like it even remotely matters is madness. Will there be media coverage of my posts on the topic, since it’s suddenly world news when a private American citizen comments on what is happening in another country…

      • This isn’t Tom the small business accountant from rural Ohio commenting on Germany’s immigration policy on a facebook post. It’s someone who controls more money than the GDP of multiple entire countries, and who has already shown an interest in using his companies to influence geo-politics based on his opinions in the moment.

        If anything, you should be concerned that a single individual can make choices about global politics without discussion or legal safety guards - which has historically caused some issues in the place that the AfD comes from.

      • To be fair, this is a private American citizen with close enough ties to far right politicians he hosted the campaign launch of one, who’s whim personally controls a major space launch provider and a site that sets the terms of public conversation and normality for a terrifying large number of people, and ohh ya, in an economic system based around the idea that the person with the most capital gets to decide what to do , well he has the most capital.

    • In 2022, it was ruled that the BfV may classify and monitor the entire party as a suspected right-wing extremist group. A corresponding lawsuit by the AfD was dismissed because “there were sufficient factual indications of anti-constitutional efforts within the AfD”.[36] On 26 April 2023, the BfV, after four years of investigations into the Young Alternative for Germany, categorized that group as a confirmed extremist organization. This allowed the chief of the BfV Thomas Haldenwang to place the youth wing under even more intensive surveillance than the tapping of phone and the use of undercover agents that had been the case until then.[45][46]

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_for_Germany

      Just summarizing here. They are right wing extremists that have taken over old Nazi talking points and are gaining popularity with anti immigration, anti climate change and populist propaganda.

        • They’re also famous for very much being “blind on the right eye”. They didn’t ban the neonazi party “NPD” (for reference: the original Nazi party was the NSDAP) and their last ex boss (Hans-Georg Maaßen) is a far right conspiracy nut.

          They’ve partially come around apparently as they’re now watching the AfD (which is far stronger than the NPD ever was) as well as Maaßen.

          • BfV cannot ban parties. Only the highest court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) can. The only reason they did not do it was because the NPD has too little meaning to be a thread to the German constitution.

        •  Kalash   ( @theKalash@feddit.ch ) 
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          9 months ago

          I don’t think that comparison is very fitting. The FBI is equivalant to the German Bundespolizei (Federal Police).

          The BfV is more like the NSA or the Dept. of homeland security. It’s an domestic intelligence agency.

    • AfD is mostly populism. Apart from immigration they hardly agree on anything and have a lot of internal conflict about what the stance of the party should be.

      The current situation is that the established parties (and especially the media) don’t engage much in discussion with AfD and just call them nazis, which divides the country. Admitting publicly that you vote for them will also get you thrown into the corner of people everyone calls nazis.

  • Twitter is so easy for people to get off of. But they won’t.

    Now, if any companies could give any serious competition in the US to SpaceX (launch or Starlink) and Tesla, that would be phenomenal.

    • Space travel isn’t profitable. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done, of course, but the way it works is that pieces of shit like musk wedge themselves in the space and then like a leech start siphoning public funding from NASA just because idiot or senile senators would rather allocate more money to private industry then fund a public good. So SpaceX get’s subsidized, and NASA gets privatized.

      •  zhunk   ( @zhunk@beehaw.org ) 
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        9 months ago

        Regarding the profitability - spaceflight isn’t profitable yet. Some companies are trying to do manufacturing and mining that could be profitable in the future, especially if launch costs keep dropping. Moving heavy industry off planet seems like a good goal to me. That’s also ignoring different imaging and communications companies that are doing alright.

        Regarding privatization - NASA has contacted out services from their literal beginning in the Mercury program. Contracting out basic/boring launch makes sense to me and lets them focus on bigger ideas. I don’t really think SpaceX is “subsidized” vs winning contracts to deliver hardware and provide services, especially when you compare to their competition for programs like ISS commercial crew/cargo and Artemis human landing system, where their direct competitors (Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Blue Origin, etc) are more expensive.

        My big gripe is that no one else has launch capacity right now, so SpaceX has no pressure to get cheaper and companies don’t have a choice. Ariane 5 retired, Atlas V is booked out, and Vulcan, Ariane 6, New Glenn, Neutron, Terran R, etc. are not flying yet.

    • I hope that if he steps foot in any country that experienced the horrors of Nazism, that the locals take to the streets to forcefully eject him from the country. He should be denied entry by the EU entirely.

      Edit: I also hopes Germany does something about the AfD, who don’t appear to be congruous with Nazi anti-glorification laws.

  • It doesn’t matter how much money he has - every time I visualize Musk posting to Twitter, I see him as a teenage edgelord in a shabby suburban tract house, hunched over an off-the-shelf desktop PC in a room with green shag carpeting and fake wood paneling, lit only by the glow from the screen, giggling to himself.

  • According to an expert assessment from the German Institute for Human Rights that’s a hundred pages long, all the conditions for banning the AfD party are met. Talks about the urgent need to do so are being kicked off. If a party ban is seriously being considered, you know they are doing something wrong. Party bans in Germany are very difficult to achieve for obvious historical reasons. So far only two have been banned, one of them was the SRP, the follow-up party of the Nazi party.

    •  HMH   ( @HMH@lemmy.ml ) 
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      Considering that recent polls show the AfD at ~30% in some states, I doubt banning it will work. The only reasons it’s gotten this big is abysmal politics by the current and former govt. I’m pretty sure banning it is only going to make things worse. And I am not at all convinced you can truly consider them ban worthy like actual Nazis, even though the current govt would very much like you to think this way.