Exchange of blows in the election campaign: Mützenich: Relations with the USA in danger due to Musk

SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich sees the failures of US billionaire Elon Musk towards Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) as a burden on German-American relations. In “Spiegel” Mützenich called for clarity as to “whether the repeated disrespect, defamation and interference in the election campaign were also expressed in the name of the new US government.” Mützenich accused Musk of crossing “a border between friendly states.”

The tech billionaire had written in English on the Internet platform X, which he owns: “Steinmeier is an anti-democratic tyrant! Shame on him.” Steinmeier had previously banned outside influence on German domestic politics. Musk also called Scholz a “fool” on X and called for his resignation. In his New Year’s address to voters, the Chancellor said: “What happens next in Germany is up to you – the citizens. The owners of social media do not decide that.”

Musk’s election call for the AfD

SPD leader Lars Klingbeil had already compared Musk to Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin for interfering in the federal election campaign. The Tesla boss had repeatedly called for the AfD to be elected and wrote in a guest article in “Welt am Sonntag” that the party was “the last spark of hope for this country”.

Musk is considered a close advisor to US President-elect Donald Trump and was commissioned by him to work with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy on a newly created committee called DOGE (“Department of Government Efficiency”) to develop proposals for cutting government spending. However, he should not become an official member of the government.

Musk is known as a busy entrepreneur (Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, X.AI), but also as an extreme user of his own platform X (formerly Twitter), which he acquired in 2022. He has 210 million followers there. His latest username there is “Kekius Maximus”.