Tesla boss Elon Musk has added German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to the list of politicians he has insulted in Europe. He also announced a plan to speak to the leader of the country's far-right AfD.

(…) Plans for online Musk-Weidel meeting

The spokesman for the leader of the AfD, Alice Weidel, said concrete plans were underway for an online meeting between her and Musk.

That came after Musk himself suggested a meeting between the two via X’s Spaces chat feature. “Wait until Alice and I do an X Spaces conversation. They will lose their minds,” he posted. (…)

“Elon Musk is equipped with billions and unbridled communication power,” Habeck wrote on X. “His call for the AfD is systematic: He wants to weaken Europe. Power must be limited: no business model must destroy our democracy. Europe must now use its power consistently.”

Concerns are also growing in the UK as Musk takes an increasingly close interest in Britain’s political scene, aligning himself with hard-right lawmaker Nigel Farage.

Musk has busied himself with taking aim at the UK’s center-left Labour government, launching a series of blistering comments against British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

  • You@feddit.orgOPEnglish
    321·
    1 month ago

    I have kept the original headline of the article. In my opinion, however, this is an unfavorable choice with regard to the rest of the article’s content.

    Elon keeps endorsing politicians and parties on the far right in Europe through his (anti-)social media platform. Openly meddling in foreign countries affairs only to cause disruption and further his own interests. And all the while he is designated to be part of Trump’s new gouvernment as head of DOGE.

    • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      24·
      1 month ago

      head of DOGE

      Well don’t worry too much: the DOGE doesn’t exist and can’t be created without an act of congress, and that’s simply not gonna happen.

      In other words, Musk and Ramaswamy have no power other than the one every fucking billionnaire has, which is talk into the ear of congresscritters who are willing to listen to them and actually do their bidding.

      It’s not great, as congresscritters are pretty much all more or less corrupt, but it’s better than those two ultra-rich nutjobs running an actual United States department.

      • federal reverse@feddit.orgMEnglish
        1·
        2 days ago

        I remembered this comment & how it aged like fine milk.

        I am kind of assuming you worry about DOGE now? Almost everything they do is illegal, but afaict the courts aren’t fast enough to prosecute any of it. Given another few weeks, there won’t be any judges willing to touch DOGE either. The only thing that could stop this is if Musk and Trump had a major fallout.

        Apparently though, people still think they’ll continue to live in a democracy.

        • ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
          2·
          2 days ago

          Well, my comments holds true: DOGE doesn’t exist as a state department, and billonaires don’t have any legal power.

          What DOGE is is a bunch of goons illegally tasked by the president to illegally gain control of lawful state departments and letting people without proper credential illegally access sensitive data to do who-knows-what without any oversight, and no pushback from the people’s elected representatives.

          My comment stated what could be legally done. The reality is that the corrupt POTUS and his puppetmasters went full illegal, so it doesn’t even apply anymore. In a normal world, Trump and Musk would be cooling off in jail right now charged with high treason. But for some reason, that’s not happening…

          I could see Trump trying a few sketchy things and getting immediate backlash from congress. I couldn’t see him staging a full-blown coup and meeting zero resistance. Could you see that one coming? I couldn’t.

          • federal reverse@feddit.orgMEnglish
            1·
            1 day ago

            When I first read your comment, I knew that DOGE was going to be more real/impactful than you seemed to realize. After all, there was Project 2025 and it spelled out that that Trump should drastically reduce people power and spending everywhere across the bureaucracy. I also knew that Trump gave a fuck about legalities and that his goal would be to lead autocratically (he literally said the thing about being a first-day dictator).

            Here’s the things I didn’t know:

            • I saw the comments about “President Musk” but I didn’t realize that it would actually be true.
            • I didn’t realize that a coalition of atheist-tech libertarians and Evangelical-oil/gas libertarians would work either. I was counting on the latter being at the forefront, not the former.
            • I had no idea DOGE would simply close down entire federal agencies within weeks.
            • I had no idea that they would go right to the office that processes payments and slash everyone’s funding. Or that you could be brazen enough to just email the people of entire agencies “there’s a fork in the road, go resign”.
            • I hadn’t heard of network states or accelerationism. I’d mostly forgotten the name Curtis Yarvin and I’d missed that the libertarian idea of “seasteading” had morphed (and I’d only seen it presented to me as comedy, as part of the series Silicon Valley where one character [who was transparently modeled after Peter Thiel] built an artificial island).

            For the record: If you’re an American, I’d like to urge you to stand up and protest. At the rate it’s going, you won’t have much time to defend democracy. I’ve read Wapo yesterday and watched late-night shows – they’re all still sanewashing what is happening to some degree. They are still failing to mention the word “coup” and that’s extremely dangerous.

      • You@feddit.orgOPEnglish
        7·
        1 month ago

        Thank you, I won’t worry too much about DOGE. Unfortunately you’re right about the rest too. These people have too much money to influence politics.