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Musk is increasingly vocal in support of Europe's far

right

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Pair agree AfD is censored, slam energy, migration

policies

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Publicly endorsed Germany's AfD ahead of Feb. 23 election

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EU grappling with how to respond to Musk political

activity

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German parliament probes suspected election meddling

By Sarah Marsh, Thomas Escritt

BERLIN, Jan 9 (Reuters) -

Elon Musk urged Germans to vote for the far-right

Alternative for Germany (AfD) in an upcoming national election

during a broadcast he hosted with the party's leader on his

social media platform on Thursday.

Musk last year used X and his vast wealth to help Republican

candidate Donald Trump win the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential

election. Now he is becoming vocal in his support for far-right

and anti-establishment parties in Europe ahead of Germany's Feb.

23 national election.

The world's richest man has shown particular interest in

Germany, Europe's economic powerhouse, where he opened Tesla's

first European plant in 2022.

Musk introduced the AfD's chancellor candidate Alice Weidel,

whose party is second in polls but has almost no chance of

forming a government due to other parties' refusal to work with

it, as "the leading candidate to run Germany."

In a conversation punctured by giggles from both parties,

the two agreed that Germany was hamstrung by a "crazy" energy

policy, excessive bureaucracy and uncontrolled immigration.

"People really need to get behind AfD, otherwise things are

going to get very, very much worse in Germany," he said. "I

think Alice Weidel is a very reasonable person. Nothing

outrageous is being proposed."

Musk was doubling down on his endorsement last month of the

AfD, an anti-immigration, anti-Islamic party labeled as

right-wing-extremist by German security services, which has

caused consternation in Berlin.

Speaking in fluent English, Weidel expressed gratitude for

Musk's support, saying that the opportunity to speak with Musk

was the first time in 10 years that she had been allowed a

platform to say her piece without interruption from a media

world that, she said, was biased against her.

"People love to censor things they don't agree with," Musk

agreed after the two compared the media and German politicians'

treatment of the AfD to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's treatment

of pro-Jewish voices in the 1930s.

Leaders across Europe have expressed alarm over Musk's political

activities. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez accused Musk of

undermining democracy, without directly naming him, while

France's foreign minister urged the EU to use its laws more

robustly to guard against outside interference.

Musk, who describes himself as a libertarian, has called German

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier a "tyrant" for criticising the

AfD and called on Chancellor Olaf Scholz to resign after a

deadly car attack on a German Christmas market. Both men belong

to the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD).

Last August Musk held a similar talk with Trump, who has since

tasked the entrepreneur with leading a drive to make U.S.

government more efficient.

In his chat with Weidel, Musk recalled the bureaucratic

hurdles he had to go through to open the German Tesla plant.

"I think it was 25,000 pages was our permit. And it had to

be all printed on paper," Musk said. "And then there has to be

many, many copies made. So it literally was a truck of paper."

On energy, Musk backed Germany's renewable ambitions but

agreed with Weidel that turning off the nuclear power plants was

a bad idea.

"When I saw that Germany was turning off the power plants

after being cut off from gas supplies from Russia, I thought ...

this is one of the craziest things I've ever seen," he said.