WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Tech billionaire Elon Musk livestreamed his chat with a leader of Germany's far-right party on Thursday, using the power of his social media platform, X, to amplify the party's message ahead of an upcoming national election — and raising concerns across Europe about the world's richest man trying to influence foreign politics.
Musk, who worked last year to help reelect Donald Trump in the United States, told Alice Weidel, a co-leader of the Alternative for Germany party and its candidate for chancellor, that he was “strongly recommending that people vote for AfD,” using the party's acronym. The audience for the livestream peaked at more than 200,000 X accounts.
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Alice Weidel, parliamentary group leader, party chairwoman and candidate for chancellor of the AfD, prepares for a live X interview with U.S. billionaire Elon Musk in her office in the Jakob Kaiser House in Berlin, on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (Kay Nietfeld/Pool Photo via AP)
FILE - Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk listens as Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show, on Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
FILE - Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gestures as he speaks at Life Center Church in Harrisburg, Pa., on Oct. 19, 2024. (Sean Simmers/The Patriot-News via AP, File)
Alice Weidel, parliamentary group leader, party chairwoman and candidate for chancellor of the AfD, prepares for a live X interview with U.S. billionaire Elon Musk in her office in the Jakob Kaiser House in Berlin, on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (Kay Nietfeld/Pool Photo via AP)
FILE - Elon Musk jumps on the stage as Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show on Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
FILE - Elon Musk speaks before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Musk and Weidel agreed that Germany’s taxes are too high, that there is too much immigration, and that it was a mistake for the country to shut down nuclear power plants.
Musk said he hoped the conversation showed people that Weidel is reasonable. “Nothing outrageous has been proposed, just common sense,” Musk said. “People really need to get behind the AfD, otherwise things are going to get very, very much worse in Germany.”
The AfD has been put under observation by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency for suspected extremism, and mainstream parties have shunned working with it. The AfD has strongly rejected the designation, portraying it as a political attempt to discredit the party.
Musk and Weidel emphasized the importance of free speech, and Weidel used the topic as an opportunity to refute the idea that the AfD shares any affinity with the country’s Nazi past. She said one of Adolf Hitler’s first acts after seizing power was to restrict speech. She then emphasized that the AfD holds libertarian views, and contrasted that with Hitler, who she noted had nationalized Germany’s economy.
“The biggest success after that terrible era in our history was to label Adolf Hitler as right and conservative. He was exactly the opposite. He wasn’t a conservative. He wasn’t a libertarian. He was a communist socialist guy,” Weidel claimed.
The conversation later took a turn away from politics, with Weidel asking Musk when he thought humans could live on Mars and whether he believed in God — questions he gave long and inconclusive replies to. "I am open to the idea of God," he said at one point.
In her concluding remarks, Weidel told Musk that his views are “visionary.”
Musk has previously used X to endorse AfD, and he authored an opinion article for the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, claiming Germany under center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz is “teetering on the edge of economic and cultural collapse.” Germany's election is scheduled for Feb. 23.
The foray into politics by the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive is raising alarm across Europe.
In addition to endorsing the AfD, Musk has demanded the release of jailed U.K. anti-Islam extremist Tommy Robinson and called British Prime Minister Keir Starmer an evil tyrant who should be in prison.
The chat between Musk and Weidel was being monitored by watchdogs from the European Commission, which has accused X of violating the 27-nation bloc’s sweeping digital rulebook for cleaning up social media platforms and protecting internet users from online harm.
Commission officials say Musk has the right to express his views but that the rulebook — known as the Digital Services Act — is designed to rein in risks that platforms will be misused to amplify illegal content, including hate speech or election-related misinformation.
The commission has been investigating whether X complies. In preliminary findings issued last year, Brussels said the platform was in breach because its blue checkmarks originally intended as verification badges are deceptive, and because it falls short on transparency and accountability requirements. Regulators are still investigating other possible offenses.
Musk presented Weidel as “the leading candidate to run Germany” — but that isn't true.
Polls show that AfD has grown to be the second-most popular party in the country. The mainstream conservative Christian Democrats are favored to win the election, with the latest polling showing them at 31% support, compared with 20% for the AfD.
Still, the AfD has risen in popularity, as have parties with similar views across Europe, where a former taboo against far-right viewpoints is in decline.
AfD was formed in 2013 and has moved steadily to the right. Its platform initially centered on opposition to bailouts for struggling eurozone members, but its vehement opposition to then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to allow in large numbers of refugees and other migrants in 2015 established the party as a significant political force.
AfD's support has grown as a result of discontent with Scholz’s three-party coalition government. It's rising popularity also reflects a growing frustration among some with Germany’s involvement with the European Union and NATO which some view as eroding national sovereignty.
AP Business Writer Kelvin Chan in London contributed to this report.
Alice Weidel, parliamentary group leader, party chairwoman and candidate for chancellor of the AfD, prepares for a live X interview with U.S. billionaire Elon Musk in her office in the Jakob Kaiser House in Berlin, on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (Kay Nietfeld/Pool Photo via AP)
FILE - Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk listens as Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show, on Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
FILE - Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gestures as he speaks at Life Center Church in Harrisburg, Pa., on Oct. 19, 2024. (Sean Simmers/The Patriot-News via AP, File)
Alice Weidel, parliamentary group leader, party chairwoman and candidate for chancellor of the AfD, prepares for a live X interview with U.S. billionaire Elon Musk in her office in the Jakob Kaiser House in Berlin, on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (Kay Nietfeld/Pool Photo via AP)
FILE - Elon Musk jumps on the stage as Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show on Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
FILE - Elon Musk speaks before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was arrested Thursday when her motorcycle convoy was fired upon by security forces as it departed an anti-government protest in Caracas, according to aides.
Machado emerged from months of hiding earlier Thursday to reappear in public as part of a last-ditch attempt to block President Nicolás Maduro from clinging to power.
Machado’s press team said in a social media post that security forces “violently intercepted” the convoy as it was leaving eastern Caracas.
“They wanted us to fight each other, but Venezuela is united, we are not afraid,” Machado shouted to a few hundred protesters from atop a truck in the capital moments before her arrest.
There were no immediate details on her whereabouts and Maduro’s government has yet to comment. But the shock arrest spurred calls for her immediate release from across Latin America, including the President of Panama.
“Will the United Nations be capable enough to take action to rescue Maria Corina Machado?,” former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said on social media.
Machado, 57, is a hardliner former lawmaker who stayed and fought against Maduro even after many of her allies in the opposition leadership fled, joining an exodus of some 7 million Venezuelans who’ve abandoned their homeland in recent years.
The protests called for by Machado took place a day before the ruling party-controlled National Assembly is scheduled to swear in Maduro to a third six-year term despite credible evidence that he lost the presidential election.
There was a relatively small turnout for Thursday's protests as riot police were deployed in force. Venezuelans who’ve witnessed Maduro’s security forces round up scores of opponents and regular bystanders since the July election were reluctant to mobilize in the same numbers as they have in the past.
“Of course, there’s fewer people,” said empanada vendor Miguel Contrera as National Guard soldiers carrying riot shields buzzed by on motorcycles. “There’s fear.”
Those demonstrators that did show up blocked a main avenue in one opposition stronghold. Many were senior citizens and dressed in red, yellow and blue, answering Machado’s call to wear the colors of the Venezuelan flag. All repudiated Maduro and said they would recognize Edmundo González — Machado’s last minute stand-in on the ballot — as Venezuela’s legitimate president.
The deployment of security forces as well as pro-government armed groups known as “colectivos” to intimidate opponents betrays a deep insecurity on the part of Maduro, said Javier Corrales, a Latin America expert at Amherst College.
Since the elections, the government has arrested more than 2,000 people — including as many as 10 Americans and other foreigners — who it claims have been plotting to oust Maduro and sow chaos in the oil rich South American nation. This week alone, masked gunmen arrested a former presidential candidate, a prominent free speech activist and even González’s son-in-law as he was taking his young children to school.
“It’s an impressive show of force but it’s also a sign of weakness,” said Corrales, who co-authored this month an article, “How Maduro Stole Venezuela’s Vote,” in the Journal of Democracy.
“Maduro is safe in office,” said Corrales, “but he and his allies recognize they are moving forward with a big lie and have no other way to justify what they are doing except by relying on the military.”
González, who has been crisscrossing the Americas this week after fleeing to Spain in September, appeared to walk back a pledge to return to Venezuela to take office himself on Jan. 10, saying instead he’d be back “very soon.”
“It’s evident that a regime like that represents a threat to the hemisphere,” he said while visiting the Dominican Republic, where he met with President Luis Abinader and a delegation of former presidents from across Latin America. “That is why we Venezuelans are determined to persevere in this fight until the end,”
Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, also stacked with government loyalists, declared Maduro the winner of the election. But unlike in previous contests, authorities did not provide any access to voting records or precinct-level results.
The opposition, however, collected tally sheets from 85% of electronic voting machines and posted them online. They showed that its candidate, Edmundo González, had thrashed Maduro by a more than two-to-one margin. Experts from the United Nations and the Atlanta-based Carter Center, both invited by Maduro’s government to observe the election, have said the tally sheets published by the opposition are legitimate.
The U.S. and other governments have also recognized González as Venezuela’s president-elect. Even many of Maduro’s former leftist allies in Latin America plan to skip Friday’s swearing-in ceremony.
President Joe Biden, meeting González at the White House this week, praised the previously unknown retired diplomat for having “inspired millions.”
“The people of Venezuela deserve a peaceful transfer of power to the true winner of their presidential election,” Biden said following the meeting.
—
Goodman reported from Miami.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado greets supporters at a protest against President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025, the day before his inauguration for a third term. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado addresses supporters at a protest against President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025, the day before his inauguration for a third term. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado greets supporters during a protest against President Nicolas Maduro the day before his inauguration for a third term, in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Police detain an opponent of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro during a protest the day before his inauguration for a third term in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado addresses supporters during a protest against President Nicolas Maduro the day before his inauguration for a third term, in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado addresses supporters during a protest against President Nicolas Maduro the day before his inauguration for a third term in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado addresses supporters during a protest against President Nicolas Maduro the day before his inauguration for a third term in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado addresses supporters during a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro the day before his inauguration for a third term in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado greets supporters during a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro the day before his inauguration for a third term in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Opponents of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro display a Venezuelan flag during a protest the day before his inauguration for a third term in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Venezuelan Tulio Rodriguez holds a wanted sign of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro that reads in Spanish: "Reward. Dead or alive" outside the Venezuelan embassy in Lima, Peru, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025, the day before his inauguration for a third term. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)
Opponents of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro protest the day before his inauguration for a third term in Bogota, Colombia, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)
Opponents of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro protest the day before his inauguration for a third term in Bogota, Colombia, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)
A woman cries during a protest by opponents of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro the day before his inauguration for a third term, in Bogota, Colombia, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)
A man waves a flag during a protest by opponents of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro the day before his inauguration for a third term in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Security forces patrol past opponents of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro who are demonstrating the day before his inauguration for a third term in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Opponents of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro protest the day before his inauguration for a third term in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Government supporters, right, argue with an opponent of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro during an opposition protest the day before his inauguration for a third term in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
Opponents of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro demonstrate the day before his inauguration for a third term in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
Former Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez waves after meeting with former presidents of various Latin American countries at the presidential palace in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ricardo Hernandez)
A youth plays a horn during a protest by opponents of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro the day before his inauguration for a third term in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Government supporters ride past opponents of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro who are protesting the day before his inauguration for a third term in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
A man wearing the phrase in Spanish "Fight for freedom" kneels during a demonstration by opponents of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro the day before his inauguration for a third term in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Government supporters shout at opponents of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro who are protesting the day before his inauguration for a third term in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
Former Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, third from left, stands with former presidents, from left, Vicente Fox of Mexico, Andres Pastrana of Colombia, Hipolito Mejia of the Dominican Republic, Jamil Mahuad of Ecuador and Felipe Calderon of Mexico at the presidential palace in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP PhotoRicardo Hernandez)
Opponents of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro protest the day before his inauguration for a third term in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
