Elon Musk doubled down on his exuberant support for the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) on Thursday night, promoting its leader Alice Weidel during a livestream conservation on X.
In the wide-ranging chat, both Musk and Weidel heaped praise on Trump and voiced their shared disdain for "woke" politicians and traditional media, whom they blamed for what they called criminal immigrants and online censorship.
To German voters, Musk strongly endorsed the AfD and called Weidel a "very reasonable person".
But many of the claims made by Weidel, as well as some by Musk, were questionable. In fact, a number of the major claims made during the broadcast were completely false or misleading.
The event started with a false title
Reporters at various German media outlets, from Tagesschau to Taz, have pointed out that the misinformation began before the cameras turned on: the talk was announced as “a conversation with the leading candidate for the chancellorship".
But, in fact, if Musk wanted to chat with the leading candidate for the chancellorship he should have spoken to Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democrats (CDU) as his conservative party is clearly leading in the latest polls. As things stand according to current polls, the CDU/CSU is set to bring in the most votes in Germany's February 23rd election.
While the AfD is currently in second place in nationwide polls, Alice Weidel herself is not very popular as a chancellor candidate.
As Tagesschau reported, when it comes to German voters' favoured chancellor candidate, Weidel is actually in fifth place – behind the top candidates from the other parties including Robert Habeck of the Greens, Christian Lindner of the FDP and Sarah Wagenknecht of the BSW.
Misleading statements about immigration and crime
A key topic in the conversation was immigration.
Speaking about the asylum crisis in 2015, Weidel suggested that former Chancellor Angela Merkel had opened Germany's borders to illegal immigration.
Whether to refugees or “illegal immigrants”, the idea that Merkel had opened Germany’s borders at that time has been repeated many times, but the reality is that open borders within the Schengen zone were established years before.
An expert from ARD’s legal editorial office debunked this claim as early as 2016, calling the framing "fundamentally wrong".
On the topic, Weidel also mentioned "an influx of almost 7 million people…" into Germany since then.
It’s true that Germany has seen roughly seven million net immigrants since 2015, according to Statistical Office figures, but Weidel’s statement is misleading in that she fails to differentiate between asylum seekers and immigrants coming for work opportunities or education.
Less than half of those seven million immigrants were asylum seekers - the rest were people who were granted residence permits like skilled workers and students. According to Eurostat, Germany has received around 3 million asylum applications since 2015, some of which were ultimately rejected.
Weidel also suggested that Germany is experiencing an exploding crime rate.
As we have reported, police crime statistics (PKS) have shown an increase in the number of annual crimes since 2021.
But the latest total crime rate (from 2023) was still lower than that of 2015 or 2016.
Hitler was NOT communist
In what was perhaps her most shocking claim, Weidel said that Hitler was not right-wing, but actually a communist. That’s false.
The Nazi party (National Socialists) had “socialism” in their name only, in fact German communists, socialists and trade unionists were among the early opponents to Nazism and therefore were also among those sent to concentration camps and murdered.
To back this up, Tagesschau cites history professor Werner Suppanz from the University of Graz who told the Austrian newspaper the Standard that Nazis were "clearly not" socialist.
The Nazi ideology is based on the idea that people of different races are unequal, which fits into a more right-wing classification on the political spectrum. Right-wing politics are generally defined by putting stock in social hierarchies and “conservative” or “traditional” values.
Musk claimed theft is legal in California
For his part, Elon Musk suggested theft is legal in California, saying that people aren’t prosecuted for the theft of goods that amount to less than $1,000.
The same false claim had been previously stated by US President-elect Donald Trump.
In reality, theft of goods under $950 is illegal and punishable by up to six months in jail and fines up to $1,000 in California.
A proposition passed in 2014 did reclassify such thefts as misdemeanour (or minor offences) meaning they aren't punished as harshly. But the law also has exceptions for serious charges to be brought against repeat offenders and in cases with aggravating circumstances.
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