Musk Aims to Lead the Far-Right International

C. J. Polychroniou explores how Elon Musk is using his social media platform to communicate directly with hundreds of millions, bypassing traditional media channels with potentially dangerous consequences.

Elon Musk spent more than a quarter billion dollars to back Trump and other MAGA Republican candidates. He did so not simply because he has a lot to gain from Trump’s presidency, which he does, but also because of his own ideological proclivities.

Musk is a right-wing extremist and not content to limit his meddling to U.S. politics. In fact, he is clearly on a personal mission to advance the cause of the far right across the western world. Hence his foray into European politics.

Ahead of next month’s federal election in Germany, Musk took to his social platform x on December 20 to proclaim that “only the AfD can save Germany” while describing chancellor Olaf Scholz as an “incompetent fool,” urging him in turn to resign, and president Frank-Walter Steinmeier as an “anti-democratic tyrant.” He doubled down a few days later on his full throated support for the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) in an op-ed for the prominent German newspaper Die Welt, calling it “the last spark of hope” for the country. He went on to say that AfD “can lead the country into a future where economic prosperity, cultural integrity and technological innovations are not just wishes, but reality.” Incidentally, Musk, like all good imperialist investors, feels that his business investment in Germany gives him the right to intervene in any way he can into the country’s political condition.

Not content to limit his meddling to German politics, Musk has tried to stir up division and hatred in British politics by targeting Prime Minister Keir Starmer and top officials. He has accused the government of “releasing convicted pedophiles” and sided with jailed far-right activist Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party though he has called for Farage to be replaced as leader because he “doesn’t have what it takes” to lead the party. Apparently, even Nigel Farage isn’t sufficiently far right enough for Musk.

Europe’s leaders have denounced Musk’s meddling and support for far-right movements, but can they stop him? Musk is using the social media platform to communicate directly with hundreds of millions, bypassing traditional media channels. The billionaire owner of x has more than 200 million followers. Spreading lies and misinformation is easy and fast. MIT researchers have found that fake news spread 10 times faster than real news on social media.  And it will become even easier and faster to do so after Mark Zukerberg’s decision to cancel fact-checking on his social media platforms, a move that Elon Musk lost no time in applauding.

On Thursday, Jan. 9, Musk held a livestream chat on his x platform with AfD leader Alice Weidel that lasted more than an hour. Musk’s purpose for holding this discussion was to show people that Weidel is a very reasonable leader even though her party has been put under observation by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency for suspected extremism.  Indeed, a German court found in May 2024 that there is sufficient evidence to designate the AfD as a potentially extremist party that poses a threat to democracy and the dignity of certain groups and should therefore be kept under surveillance.

Musk has rejected the claim that the AfD is a right-wing extremist party, with the ridiculous argument that it can’t be so since its leader has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka--even though the party isn’t only engulfed in racist anti-immigrant hysteria but has vowed to restrict LGBTQ+ rights. Yet Weidel used the opportunity afforded to her by Musk to argue that the AfD shouldn’t be seen as a neo-Nazi party because it holds libertarian views on the economy (which is music to Musk’s ears as he is all for deregulation and lower taxes for corporations and the rich) and Hitler was a communist. Naturally, Musk agreed with Weidel that Hitler was indeed a communist. And also with the equally ludicrous and utterly disgusting comment that left groups who support the Palestinian cause are Nazis and antisemites. 

In an age of lies and misinformation, the notion that Hitler was a communist stands out as the high point of ideological perversion. Hitler hated communism and socialism and worked toward the annihilation of the communist movement not only in Germany but across Europe.  Upon banning all existing political parties and making the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) the only political party in Germany, Hitler had thousands of communists and social democrats arrested and imprisoned. The Dachau concentration camp was constructed specifically to hold the Nazis’ chief political enemies--the communists.  

With Musk having become the first individual on x to have over 200 million followers, it is not difficult to imagine younger generations start believing that Hitler was a communist. Or in any other lies that Musk spreads, such as that the European Union tried to stop him from having a conversation with Alice Weidel.  

Yet, it is Musk himself who is an enemy of free speech. He casts himself as a champion but has used his platform to target perceived enemies and to ban free speech. He has even sought to silence his critics with bogus lawsuits. Indeed, as the Guardian aptly put it, “Elon Musk has become the world’s biggest hypocrite on free speech.”

Thanks to Musk’s interference in German politics, there has been an enormous increase on Weidel’s average x posts in the last two weeks, which seems to suggest that Musk’s contributions could translate into more votes for the AfD.  Far-right parties are making significant strides across Europe. In 2024, the political pendulum in Europe swung even further right as the far right made huge strides in France, Portugal, Belgium, and Austria while seven EU member states—Croatia, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Slovakia--already have hard-right parties in government.

As far as the AfD is concerned, it won a German state election in 2024, making it the first far-right party to do so since 1945. However, Musk would like to see Germany’s far-right party victorious in the snap election set for Feb. 23 after the collapse of chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government.

There can be no denying that Musk “is throwing grenades into Europe’s political mainstream.” The continent needs radical change. The European Union (EU) has failed on many fronts because of the rule-by-bureaucrats in Brussels. It lacks a unifying vision and the promises of a “social Europe” has given way to neoliberal policies that have been at the core of the creeping ascent of far-right movements and parties in the European political landscape. The surge of the far right and extreme nationalism have echoes of the 1930s. But Musk is on the wrong side of history. His plan is to see Europe’s descent into a deep political crisis so the reactionary forces can eventually take over—just like they did in the 1930s. The question is: Can he be stopped before it’s too late?

C.J. Polychroniou is a political scientist/political economist, author, and journalist who has taught and worked in numerous universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. Currently, his main research interests are in U.S. politics and the political economy of the United States, European economic integration, globalization, climate change and environmental economics, and the deconstruction of neoliberalism’s politico-economic project. He is a columnist for Global Policy Journal and a regular contributor to Truthout as well as a member of Truthout’s Public Intellectual Project. He has published scores of books and over one thousand articles which have appeared in a variety of journals, magazines, newspapers and popular news websites.  Many of his publications have been translated into a multitude of different languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish. His latest books are Optimism Over Despair: Noam Chomsky On Capitalism, Empire, and Social Change (2017); Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet (with Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin as primary authors, 2020); The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic, and the Urgent Need for Radical Change (an anthology of interviews with Noam Chomsky, 2021); and Economics and the Left: Interviews with Progressive Economists (2021).

By Joseph Ayerle - Own work, Public Domain