"I Recommend a Defiant Composure": On Elon Musk’s Endorsement of the AfD
DIE ZEIT: Mr. Benner, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has decided to support the AfD in the German parliamentary election campaign. Does that worry you?
Thorsten Benner: Of course it worries me when Musk decides to use his enormous power resources to help an extreme-right party to come to power in Germany. And it also worries me that publisher Axel Springer has decided to provide a platform for this unambiguous election endorsement for the AfD – a first. This is a milestone in the normalization of the AfD.
ZEIT: Do you assume that the AfD will benefit from Musk’s support?
Benner: Few Germans will vote for the AfD just because an American billionaire endorses the party. Similarly, however, I don’t think the liberal-democratic elite’s outcry in response to Musk’s interference will do much to deter Germans from voting for the AfD.
ZEIT: At least it is now clear where Musk stands.
Benner: Absolutely. Elon Musk is the AfD’s new patron-saint. Fewer people in the democratic camp will continue to suck up to Musk in the ways of former CDU health minister Jens Spahn or FDP leader Christian Lindner. Musk’s endorsement is a gift for the AfD, but one that may well come at a cost. A gift from an unpredictable egomaniac is never risk-free. Spahn and Lindner have already burned their fingers. Nigel Farage, leader of the far-right Reform UK Party and one of Musk’s protégés in the UK, has just experienced how quickly Elon Musk can change his mind. It is certainly possible that Alice Weidel will also wake up one morning and read a post by Musk on his platform X saying that she is too weak to lead the AfD and that Björn Höcke would be a much stronger leader.
ZEIT: At an FDP party meeting this week, Lindner clearly distanced himself from Musk and accused him of wanting to sow chaos in Germany (“chaotize”). Is it possible that Musk’s meddling in the German election is an American version of the disinformation attacks we have already seen coming out of Russia?
Benner: Lindner has distanced himself from Musk. But that hasn’t come with any sort of self-criticism of his – frankly embarrassing – pandering to the icons of libertarian authoritarianism.
To your question – your analysis is correct: both the Kremlin and the forces from the libertarian-authoritarian camp around Musk want to “chaotize” Europe and dispose of the liberal democratic elites. That’s a fact of life we need to be able to deal with effectively. However, the greatest threats to our democracy do not come from outside, but rather from within. If Musk and Putin stopped their meddling today, the AfD would still resonate with way too many German voters. Dealing with Musk isn’t too much of a concern for the average German voter. Election campaigners would be well-advised to focus on the problems German voters demand answers to. I recommend a defiant composure when dealing with Musk.
ZEIT: What does that mean?
Benner: Not jumping over every stick that Musk holds out. “Don’t feed the troll” is often good counsel when dealing with Musk. And politicians should not stop at merely indignant and ultimately empty rhetoric – think of German vice chancellor Robert Habeck asking citizens to sign a petition (“Hands off our democracy, Mr. Musk!”). This is a completely inadequate and powerless course of action, if it is not backed up with concrete proposals.
ZEIT: What do you propose?
Benner: One must try to find a political response that hits Musk where it hurts, right where his business and power interests are located.
ZEIT: Which means?
Benner: It means at least three things. Firstly, X must finally be regulated decisively. European law offers us ways to force Musk to comply with existing framework conditions. The EU Commission should make full use of this framework (and urgently needs to do the same with TikTok). Secondly, Europe must strive to rapidly decrease its dependence on Musk with regards to his rocket technology at SpaceX and his Starlink satellite network. As Europeans, we need to step up to face this massive investment. And thirdly, we could motivate citizens who do not want to support this anti-democratic egomaniac to stop buying Teslas.
ZEIT: A Tesla boycott?
Benner: That would certainly be a smarter response than signing an empty petition against Musk.
ZEIT: Musk published his election endorsement in the daily newspaper “Welt”, in the face of some editorial resistance and accompanied by a critical commentary from the editorial team. How do you assess the role the publishing house Axel Springer played in this process?
Benner: I think Axel Springer is sending out a very wrong signal by publishing the election endorsement for the AfD. At the same time, I don’t think this is some kind of masterplan on the part of Springer’s executive Mathias Döpfner to become the twenty-first century’s Alfred Hugenberg and help the AfD to power…
ZEIT: Hugenberg was a German right-wing nationalist tycoon who contributed significantly to the destruction of Weimar democracy.
Benner: I assume that the election endorsement “Welt” published had little to do with German domestic politics but was very much linked to Springer’s ambitions in the US.
Springer wants to expand massively there; they have bought the online medium Politico, for example. It seems to me that the publication was a favor. After all, being on Musk’s good side can’t hurt in the Musk-Trump era. Presumably, they were simply willing to live with the fall-out and political costs of this move. Mathias Döpfner recently called for a far-reaching decoupling from China in a book that is well worth reading. Musk, however, is heavily dependent on his business in China and regularly panders to the Chinese leadership. On this critical issue, Döpfner and Musk are anything but political soulmates.
ZEIT: How to define Musk given his global influence, his wealth, his proximity to political power? A tycoon? A magnate? An oligarch?
Benner: There have always been business leaders who have tried to influence politics, especially in the United States. They used to be called magnates or tycoons, elsewhere they are called oligarchs. What is new here is the global nature of their ambitions. The technological possibilities and their transnational networks have a new quality. Perhaps we haven’t looked at them closely for a long time because people like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook, now Meta, have less radical political convictions. Elon Musk embodies a new type of tech tycoon who puts his enormous wealth at the service of a libertarian-authoritarian ideology and attempts to shape politics to his liking — not just in the US but globally.
ZEIT: On Tuesday, it became clear that Zuckerberg is going Musk’s way and wants to do away with moderation and fact checks on Facebook. What can liberal democracies do about this?
Benner: For all his cheap pandering to Trump and self-serving anti-regulatory agenda, Zuckerberg has not fully signed on to Musk’s political project. And in all fairness, his skepticism regarding the track record of filters and fact checks at Meta is not completely unfounded. European governments must use their power more effectively to regulate technology companies and at the same time enable more innovation in Europe.
The aim for Germany and Europe should be to regain technology leadership. Our guiding principle as Europeans should be to produce more globally successful tech entrepreneurs able to scale their businesses out of Europe — and at the same time to guide their activities to support the public good. Someone like Musk should be an incentive for us Europeans to do much better.
ZEIT: Finally, a speculation: two giant egos like Trump and Musk — how long can they put up with each other?
Benner: Anyone who assumes that Musk will become the true ruler of the US, is wrong. Firstly, because no one can quite outdo Trump in terms of unpredictable egomania. Secondly, it is the logic of Trump’s court that no one will be bigger than Trump. And finally, as a 78-year-old in his second term, Trump has a great deal of freedom. Ultimately, he is less dependent on Musk than Musk is on him. Musk is hugely reliant on government regulation and even public contracts, even if he is always championing less government. If push comes to shove, Trump will prevail.
An abridged version of this interview was published by DIE ZEIT on January 8, 2025. The interview was conducted by Heinrich Wefing.