Elon Musk and Alice Weidel: The five biggest lies in talk

A candidate for chancellor and a tech billionaire at regular table level: The Alice Weidel Elon Musk talk on X resulted in a best-of of conspiracy myths, misinformation and lies. The German education system? In the end. Angela Merkel? A green chancellor. Adolf Hitler? A leftist.

As if the Tesla founder and the AfD co-chair had met at the bar of a bar in the middle of the night, Musk and Weidel combed through the world’s biggest questions in quick succession. United in anger at “the others.” A shared waltz on very thin ice – only in this case it wasn’t just two glasses of beer listening, but more than 200,000 people worldwide.

It was clear that their conversation would not be a confrontational interview in which statements were questioned or checked. But both truly took each other’s claims at face value. The star documents the five biggest misinformation from the talk by Elon Musk and Alice Weidel.

Incorrect. In addition to Germany, Italy has also turned its back on nuclear power. After the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, the government put the . In 2024, Giorgia Meloni’s cabinet announced that it would introduce a law that would enable a re-entry, but nothing has happened yet. In addition, countries such as Switzerland, Belgium and Spain have already decided or are in the process of phasing out nuclear power.

Incorrect. For years, Germany has occupied second place in a comparison of the 36 countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). According to a study, a single person with a normal income in the Federal Republic has to pay an average of 47.9 percent of their salary to the state in the form of taxes and social security contributions, as “” reports.

The value is higher in Belgium (52.7 percent). What Weidel hides with her claim: The situation is completely different for couples. They pay an average of 33.1 percent taxes. The values ​​are higher in Finland, Italy, France, Belgium, Sweden, Portugal and Austria.

According to him, this is also wrong. Accordingly, most young people said they were voting for the AfD because they were dissatisfied with the other parties. 70 percent of young people who voted for the AfD said they believe the current government is working against them and is not interested in “ordinary people.” Added to this are the motives of uncertainty and fear of the future – regardless of whether this actually applies to the respective living conditions. The education system, however, was not a frequently cited reason for choosing the party.

Incorrect. Calling Hitler and the Nazis leftists, socialists or, as Alice Weidel has now done, “communists” is a conspiracy myth that has been spreading for a long time. By definition, however, the National Socialists were right-wing extremists, even if their proper name might suggest otherwise. Extremism expert Jürgen P. Lang also explains this to the “”: “The basis of the National Socialist worldview is the inequality of people, which ultimately led to the racial madness of the Nazi regime. This is the exact opposite of the left-wing ideal of equality.”

In addition, the communist party KPD was banned during the Nazi regime and its members were persecuted and arrested. Around 20,000 communists were murdered by the Nazis.

Wherever right-wing conspiracy myths are discussed, Bill Gates cannot be missing. The billionaire is a frequent protagonist in conspiracy stories. But Weidel’s claim that Gates tried to sell “his mRNA vaccinations” during the corona pandemic is also false. Gates has been involved for years. But he has neither patents nor his own company to produce vaccines. Claiming he was trying to sell “his vaccinations” is incorrect.