The Musk effect: Could the X owner actually impact Germany’s election?

euronews (in English)

The tech billionaire’s comments online have caused Germany’s government to claim he was ‘interfering’ in the country’s upcoming elections – but it's unclear yet if his efforts would have a substantial impact on the vote’s outcome.

Transcript

00:00Following billionaire Elon Musk and AFD co-leader Alice Weidel's conversation on X on Thursday

00:06evening, concerns are mounting over the threat to democracy. With the German election just

00:11six weeks away, NGOs are sounding the alarm about the influence of the super-rich. NGO

00:17Lobby Control questions if the talk on X and post boosts count as party donations.

00:23We can actually see the red alert level here, because Musk has massively interfered in the US election campaign

00:29with a lot of money and has now also announced in the UK that he wants to donate 100 million US dollars

00:34to a right-wing party. This is not formally allowed in Germany, precisely because donations from non-EU countries

00:40are prohibited. But if Musk really wants to do that, then there are ways to deal with it,

00:46e.g. through less transparent association constructs or through Tesla Germany.

00:53We would have to take a closer look at whether that would be possible.

00:56Organisations are concerned about the threat to democracy.

00:59And this shows that the German system is not armed for such a kind of influence,

01:04when the richest man in the world suddenly wants to pump massive amounts of money into the German party system.

01:13Lobby Control urges Germany to introduce a cap on political donations as quickly as possible.

01:28But is it too late for these upcoming German elections?

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