By Juan Davalos
On Feb. 23, 2025, German election results shifted the nation towards a more populist right-wing government. They follow a trend of Republican-leaning, proto-nationalist movements brought to you by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.
According to Reuters’ estimations, the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), emerged as the largest political party, securing 28.5% of the vote.
The biggest surprise of the elections was the general success of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). They came in second with 20.8% of the vote. This translates to over 100 members in the Bundestag, the German federal parliament, or 24.1% of the total seats.
Founded in 2013, after the euro-zone debt crisis and with former members of the CDU, the party focused on opposing the European Union (EU) and the euro currency with AfD co-leader Jörg Meuthen.
“Our party program is the road to a different Germany,” said Meuthen, according to The Wall Street Journal.
According to Britannica, following a record-setting number of one million immigrants entering Germany in 2015, the AfD’s rhetoric became more populist and anti-immigration. This switch separated them from other center-right groups, and that distinction can be directly linked to a rapid rise in polling that culminated in 2025.
Germany is the latest government in a string of right-wing victories following Argentina’s Milei, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and, most notably, the U.S. reelecting Trump.
A notable link between all of these right-wing victories has been the unbridled financial support and political backing of billionaire Elon Musk. The tech mogul even claimed, “Only the AfD can save Germany,” on the social platform X. Later, he hosted AfD co-chairwoman Alice Weidel for a political discussion that same week.
Starting with the purchase and remodeling of Twitter to X, Musk has been engaging more with the political discourse and going on a campaign trail of sorts in 2024, beginning in Argentina with Milei and ending in Germany this year.
Breaking down Musk’s involvement is tricky as he has no “official” government position in most of these examples as he does in the U.S., but his influence certainly expands beyond public endorsements.
On Feb. 3, it was revealed that Musk had donated over 5 million of his wealth to the AfD in 2025 alone. He even visited Hungary with Weidel to meet the anti-immigrant Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
This mirrors his involvement surrounding the Trump administration, to whom he gave over a quarter of a billion dollars and therefore becoming Trump’s biggest overall political donor according to CNN.
Musk’s political involvement highlights the critical role of media and information dissemination in modern democracies and how easily they can be infiltrated by monetary powerhouses. The question is, to what purpose is a South African billionaire so interested in stoking the flames of German and American right-wing nationalism?
Most of the Musk-backed parties have a fixation on immigration. Many like The Guardian reporter Hein de Haas believe it’s an ad hominem reaction to shift the social economic problems away from a class discussion.
Just like in 2016, in Trump’s first and more controversial win, claims of foreign influence in the immediate aftermath of the German elections were prevalent.
Konstantin von Notz, chair of the Bundestag’s intelligence committee, made similar claims as Hillary Clinton that there was Russian interference as well.
“We simply have to recognise that our elections are already being manipulated — and successfully manipulated,” said von Notz to the Financial Times.
A convergence of wealth, media control, and political power presents challenges to democratic institutions. Musk has proven that if a billionaire of his status takes a political stance, they could gain unlimited access to potentially shift foreign elections at their whim.
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Photo courtesy of Elliott Stallion, via Unsplash.