German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on April 12, 2024 at the Chancellery in Berlin. (Tobias SCHWARZ / AFP)
BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says he’s staying “cool” against critical personal comments made by Elon Musk but finds it worrying that the US billionaire makes the effort to get involved in Germany’s general election by endorsing the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Scholz is reacting after Musk, a close aide to US President-elect Donald Trump, called the chancellor a “fool” after his coalition government collapsed in November and later backed the AfD in an opinion piece he wrote for a major newspaper in Germany.
Scholz, head of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), tells German magazine Stern there is “nothing new” in criticism by “rich media entrepreneurs who do not appreciate social democratic politics and do not hold back with their opinions.”
“You have to stay cool,” Scholz tells Stern.
“I find it much more worrying than such insults that Musk is supporting a party like the AfD, which is in parts right-wing extremist, which preaches rapprochement with Putin’s Russia and wants to weaken transatlantic relations,” Scholz says.
The AfD is monitored by Germany’s domestic intelligence service on suspicion of being right-wing extremist and has already been recognized as such in some individual German states.
Elon Musk listens as US President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with House Republicans at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Washington DC, November 13, 2024. (Allison Robbert/POOL/AFP)
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