The short answer
Yes — explicitly, repeatedly, and over roughly two months, in the run-up to a foreign national election.
He wrote a newspaper op-ed backing the Alternative für Deutschland in December 2024, hosted its chancellor candidate for a 74-minute live conversation on X in January 2025, and addressed the party’s official campaign launch by video, telling roughly 4,500 supporters that the AfD was the best hope for Germany’s future.
At that rally he also told the audience that there was too much focus on past guilt and that Germany needed to move beyond it.
The sequence
The op-ed
Musk’s guest piece for Welt am Sonntag called the AfD the last spark of hope for Germany. He argued that describing the party as far-right was clearly false, on the grounds that Weidel has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka, and put the point rhetorically:
“Does that sound like Hitler to you? Come on!”
He set out support for the party’s positions on energy, economic recovery and migration, wrote that its principles reflected those that made Tesla and SpaceX successful, and characterised the AfD as representing political realism rather than extremism. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency had classified the party at national level as a suspected extremist organisation in 2021.
Publication caused an internal rupture at the paper: its commentary editor resigned.
The rally at Halle
On 25 January 2025, Musk appeared by video link at the AfD’s campaign launch. The party put attendance at 4,500; police put it at 3,200. His address lasted under five minutes. He ended it with a thumbs up.
“I think you really are the best hope for Germany.”
On national pride and immigration, he urged the audience not to lose it in “some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything”, and told them that “the German people are really an ancient nation which goes back thousands of years”, adding that he had read that Julius Caesar was impressed by the German tribes. He urged supporters to “fight, fight, fight” for their country’s future, and said Germany suffered from too much bureaucracy from Brussels.
The passage that drew the most attention in Germany was this one:
“I think there is frankly too much of a focus on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that.”
“Children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their great-grandparents.”
He closed by saying he very much hoped the AfD would do well and that Alice Weidel would become chancellor. Weidel thanked him and, adapting Donald Trump’s slogan, said she would make Germany great again. In her own speech she said migrants had to be sent home, and called for re-migration.
What the AfD is, officially
Classification, not conviction
In May 2025, after the election, Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution classified the AfD as a proven far-right extremist entity, upgrading it from the suspected classification applied in 2021. The BfV’s stated basis was that the party’s sustained xenophobic and Islamophobic agitation disparages entire population groups and disregards human dignity, and is therefore anti-constitutional.
This is an intelligence-service designation, not a ban and not a criminal finding. Only the Federal Constitutional Court can ban a political party in Germany. The designation does unlock surveillance powers the agency did not previously hold, including the recruitment of informants and interception of communications.
The classification postdates Musk’s endorsement. At the time he spoke, the national-level classification in force was “suspected”, applied in 2021.
The reaction in Germany
Protest was substantial and coincided with the rally. Police revised turnout upwards to 35,000 in Berlin and 40,000 in Cologne; organisers in Berlin claimed 100,000. Demonstrators outside the Brandenburg Gate held up phone lights to form what was described as a sea of light for democracy, spelling out the word “Resistance”. Halle police opened criminal investigations over offences including assault and disrupting traffic, and said they would act against 21 people who tried to force a barrier.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who had dissolved parliament in December, accused Musk of attempting to interfere in the national election. Other politicians made the same charge. A counter-argument circulated in Berlin at the time: that Musk was entitled to his opinions as a private citizen, that Trump had not yet given him a formal role, and that the speech might not reflect the incoming administration’s position.
The result
| Party | Share |
|---|---|
| CDU/CSU | 28.5% |
| AfD | 20.8% |
| SPD | 16.5% |
| Greens | 11.6% |
| Turnout 82.5%, the highest in a national election since 1990. The AfD more than doubled its previous share — its best-ever result, and second place. Sources 06, 07. | |
The AfD did not enter government. Every other major party maintained its refusal to form a coalition with it, and Friedrich Merz of the CDU led negotiations to become chancellor.
What this site does not do is convert them into a claim about what Musk personally believes beyond what he said. Endorsing a party is not the same as holding every position of every member of that party, political speech of this kind is lawful, and the case here rests on the words as delivered — which are strong enough without extrapolation.
Outstanding on this page
The op-ed should be cited to Welt am Sonntag directly rather than via reporting of it. The 9 January X conversation and the 25 January video address should be linked to recordings and archived. The current legal status of the BfV classification as at July 2026 has not been verified and is recorded here as of May 2025 only. The name of the Welt am Sonntag commentary editor who resigned is not given here because we have not sourced it directly.
Sources
- Elon Musk backs far-right AfD party in an op-ed for German newspaper Die WeltEuronews · 28 December 2024
- Elon Musk faces criticism for encouraging Germans to move beyond ‘past guilt’NPR · 27 January 2025
- Elon Musk tells far-right AfD party it is ‘the best hope for the future of Germany’Fortune / AFP · 26 January 2025
- Elon Musk addresses Germany’s far-right AfD party in surprise rally appearanceForbes · 25 January 2025
- Musk interviews German far-right frontwomanBBC News · 9 January 2025
- Germany’s far-right AfD doubles vote shareWilson Center · election results and turnout
- Results of the German federal elections, 23 February 2025Statista, citing tagesschau.de
- From radicalisation to designation: the AfD’s extremist turnInternational Centre for Counter-Terrorism · 13 June 2025 · BfV classification
- Tens of thousands protest Germany’s far right as Musk backs AfDMalay Mail / AFP · 26 January 2025 · protest figures
- Far-right AfD rises in Germany, boosted by Trump backingTime · March 2026
This article follows the standards set out in How This Site Sources Its Claims. If you believe anything on this page is inaccurate, please use our corrections policy and right of reply. Corrections are published, dated and logged.