- cross-posted to:
- europe@feddit.org
- cross-posted to:
- europe@feddit.org
Summary
Elon Musk expressed support for Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on X, stating “Only the AfD can save Germany.”
Party leader Alice Weidel welcomed his endorsement, urging followers to review her criticisms of German politics.
The AfD, polling at 19% ahead of February’s federal election, is officially under scrutiny as an extremist group by German authorities.
Musk has previously questioned the party’s “far-right” label. Controversy surrounds the AfD, including links to a meeting discussing deportation of migrants.
Damn, so he’s just going to buy every government? I guess the first one was so cheap, he figures he can afford at least four or five more.
People have a real problem grasping the wealth of 500 Billion dollars. At the Median US household income it would take 12 years to make a million dollars; 1,200 years to make a hundred million dollars; 12,000 years to make a billion dollars; and 1.2 million years to make a 100 billion dollars.
His wealth is essentially limitless. It is that of a moderate sized country like Norway or Israel. When he can have an effect with 100 million dollars he could influence 5,000 elections with 500 billion dollars. And that’s not even talking about his investments in social media, PR cult of personality, and straight up vote buying in broad daylight.
I sincerely hope he and X end up banned from Europe, with a warrant out for his arrest in relation for doing this. Because America has proven unable to stop him. Another country might though if they come down hard on anyone accepting his money and as hard as they can on him without using their military.
I miss when rich guys just bought sports teams
Or built libraries
That shows how good they were at rehabilitating their image. How did those “philanthropists” get the money to build the libraries?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike
I miss when they had their heads chopped off.
Didn’t his estimated wealth nearly double in the past couple years? He’s got enough money to buy all the governments at this point
Basically just one of those idle clicker games at this point…
Buy government, get money from government, buy another government - rinse and repeat.
It’s like those leveraged buyouts that were all the rage a few years back
Doubled in the past month. ~$220 Billion to $440 Billion or something.
When i hear stats like this, it makes money seem a lot less valuable
Money is completely fake, especially stock market money. Too bad we have to pretend it’s real so we can pay our landlords etc.
Buying governments really pays off it seems.
Fortunately, AfD is not in the government and possibly never will be
They have been getting traction consistently and German politics moved significantly to the right over the past years. Now supposedly progressive parties like the social democrats and greens spout stuff that five years ago was exclusive to the AfD and maybe the fringes of the Bavarian CSU.
Even if they don’t govern they get their way more and more, which helps normalising their positions more and more, which gives them more and more votes.
They had 93 seats in the German parliament as of 2017 and are now the second most popular party as of a 2023 poll.
I just got those numbers from a DDG search two minutes ago. Where did you get your information?
They would require a coalition with another big party, but all other established parties are strongly opposed to working with them, while being at least somewhat open to working with each other. From that perspective, the current voting predictions can be seen as 19% AfD vs 60% established parties (no longer counting FDP, lol). Still bad, but I think it’s reasonably likely that the other parties would keep coalising with each other and excluding the AfD.
This is a much more reasonable take than what you said earlier, as much as I’d prefer it were not true.
It’s the same take. They’re not in the government, and possibly never will be.
Seems we have different definitions of “in the government.”
Ah, I see the issue now. Parties get voted into the parliament. The government consists of a coalition of parties that together form a majority. The other parties form the opposition. Therefore, a single party can have many seats in the parliament, but still not be part of the government, if enough other parties coalise without them.
No, I get your definition, I just disagree with it.
He’s . . . he’s a CEO isnt’ he?
Didn’t you hear? He’s the new president of America, just elected by the people, with his secretary Trump by his side
Elected by billionaires, not the people
Cheap? More like insanely profitable. It’s like any good business venture: you use your successes to expand.