German Chancellor Appears to Swipe at Elon Musk In NYE Address: Future ‘Will Not Be Decided By Social Media Owners’

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took what appeared to be a veiled swipe at Elon Musk Tuesday when he said “the owners of social media” would not decide his country’s future just weeks before a crucial election.

Musk has been vocal about his support for Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany political party. Last week, the X owner wrote an opinion piece published by Germnay’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper in which he argued the AfD was the country’s “last spark of hope.”

The op-ed drew criticism from Germany’s government and followed comments the billionaire made about the party online in which he stated, “Only the AfD can save Germany.”

In a New Year’s Eve address to his country’s citizens, Scholz touched on where Germany would find itself after its Feb. 23 election.

“It will not be decided by the owners of social media channels,” Scholz said, The Guardian reported. “In our debates, one can be forgiven for sometimes thinking the more extreme an opinion is, the more attention it will garner.”

Scholz concluded Germnay’s fate lay not with tech billionaires but with “the vast majority of reasonable and decent people.” Guardian further reported:

Without mentioning Musk or his platform, X, explicitly, Scholz urged Germans to resist manipulation and to stand up for their democracy.

“After all, it’s customary to make wishes on New Year’s Eve. What I wish for is that we will not let ourselves be played off each other,” he said.

Scholz noted there had been a surge of disinformation on social media after the Christmas market attack in Magdeburg on 20 December in which five people were killed and more than 200 injured. The car ramming was allegedly committed by a Saudi-born assailant with far-right sympathies.

“No small number of these rumours and conjectures, though, have meanwhile been debunked. These things divide and weaken us,” he said. “This is not good for our country.”

Musk’s support for Germany’s AfD drew criticism from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), who told CNN two weeks ago the billionaire was supporting a “Neo-Nazi party.”

The X owner responded by calling Murphy a “liar.” Musk was also roundly roasted online for claiming, “The AfD policies are identical to those of the US Democratic Party when Obama took office! I don’t think there is a single difference.”

Germany’s DW news agency describes the party’s platform as one that “insists on the primacy of “traditional” German culture and rejects Islam as a part of German society. It also questions the notion that climate change is man-made, wants to uphold family values and opposes diversity and gender issues. The AfD wants to limit NATO’s operational area to the territory of its member states and replace the EU with a new organization.”

DW also notes, “The AfD has a powerful extremist section which the domestic intelligence service is keeping tabs on.”