German chancellor Olaf Scholz has hit out at Elon Musk, and has begged voters not to allow the ‘owners of social media channels’ to decide the country’s upcoming election, after the Tesla chief said only the AfD party could ‘save Germany.’
Germans will head to the polls in a parliamentary election on February 23 after a fractious Scholz-led coalition government comprising his Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business FDP ended in collapse.
In his upcoming New Year’s speech, which is set to air tonight at around 7pm, the SDP leader alluded to a recent stand-off with Musk, who has endorsed the AfD and called for Scholz to resign in the wake of a deadly attack in Magdeburg.
The future of Germany ‘will not be decided by the owners of social media channels,’ Scholz said in the address.
‘It won’t be the person who yells loudest who will decide where Germany goes from here – rather, that will be up to the vast majority of reasonable and decent people.
‘I appeal to you today: Please go vote! By looking around in the world, you will know what a great accomplishment free and fair elections are’, he added.
The world’s richest man doubled down on his comments from December 20 that ‘only the AfD can save Germany’, writing that the anti-immigration AfD was the ‘last ray of hope for the country’ at the ‘brink of cultural and economic collapse’.
Despite various branches of the AfD being labelled ‘extremist’ by Germany’s domestic security agency, Musk said the AfD’s classification as far-right was ‘clearly false’ as party leader Alice Weidel ‘has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka’.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz (pictured) has hit out at Elon Musk, and has begged voters not to allow the ‘owners of social media channels’ to decide the country’s upcoming election
Elon Musk (pictured) wrote earlier this month that the anti-immigration AfD was the ‘last ray of hope for the country’ at the ‘brink of cultural and economic collapse’
The elections come in the wake of the deaths of five people and injury of over 200 in a car-ramming attack at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg on December 20, stoking the flames of a debate over limiting immigration and a harsher stance on deportations.
Germany has been on high alert for weeks following the terror attack in the city of Magdeburg, in which Saudi doctor Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, 50, smashed his rented SUV into a crowd at the Christmas market.
Nine-year-old André Gleißner was killed and at least 235 people were injured in the horrifying rampage, dozens of whom are still in serious condition, according to authorities.
Police are still puzzling over why Abdulmohsen attacked the market, with the prosecutor indicating that the medic’s grievance about how Germany was treating Saudi dissident asylum seekers could be a possible motive.
Abdulmohsen – who was arrested beside the battered vehicle – has voiced anti-Islam views, anger at German immigration officials including former Chancellor Angela Merkel and support for far-right narratives on the ‘Islamisation’ of Europe.
Abdulmohsen reportedly willed his entire fortune to the German Red Cross, but did not include any political messages in the document.
He was remanded in custody on five counts of murder and several counts of attempted murder as well as causing grievous bodily harm, prosecutors said on Saturday night, but not so far on terrorism-related charges.
The 50-year-old is currently being held in a high-security prison near Magdeburg, where is constantly monitored by cameras and has to wear paper clothes ‘so that he doesn’t hang himself in his cell’, according to tabloid Bild.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
