{"id":5342,"date":"2025-01-26T18:21:58","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T18:21:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/german-far-right-party-event-gets-speech-from-elon-musk-fresh-off-salute-controversy\/"},"modified":"2025-01-26T18:21:58","modified_gmt":"2025-01-26T18:21:58","slug":"german-far-right-party-event-gets-speech-from-elon-musk-fresh-off-salute-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/german-far-right-party-event-gets-speech-from-elon-musk-fresh-off-salute-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"German far-right party event gets speech from Elon Musk, fresh off salute controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p class>On the heels of the backlash to his gestures at a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/donald-trump\" target=\"_blank\">Donald Trump<\/a> inauguration event and his attempts to make Nazi-related jokes on X, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/top-stories\/latest\/elon-musk-salute-nazi-trump-inauguration-backlash-rcna188540\" target=\"_blank\">Elon Musk <\/a>told supporters of<strong> <\/strong>Germany&rsquo;s far-right party on Saturday that there is &ldquo;too much of a focus on past guilt.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p class><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/jannibal_\/status\/1883177995357270394\" target=\"_blank\">Speaking virtually <\/a>at an Alternative for Germany (AfD) campaign event in eastern Germany, the Tesla CEO said people should &ldquo;take pride&rdquo; in German culture and values &ldquo;and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p class>&ldquo;&#8202;I think there&rsquo;s, 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 &#8230; let alone their great-grandparents, maybe even,&rdquo; Musk said, in an apparent reference to Germany&rsquo;s Nazi past.<\/p>\n<p class>Musk has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/opinion\/msnbc-opinion\/elon-musk-jd-vance-praise-afd-german-elections-rcna185457\" target=\"_blank\">voiced his support <\/a>for the far-right, anti-immigrant political party in recent months as he<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/world\/europe\/elon-musk-germany-politics-afd-support-5e3c0658\" target=\"_blank\"> seeks to assert his influence on Germany&rsquo;s upcoming elections<\/a>. In the past week, he has faced a deluge of criticism in the U.S. and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2025\/jan\/21\/the-gesture-speaks-for-itself-germans-divided-over-musks-apparent-nazi-salute\" target=\"_blank\">across Europe<\/a> for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/top-stories\/latest\/elon-musk-salute-nazi-trump-inauguration-backlash-rcna188540\" target=\"_blank\">a straight-arm gesture resembling a Nazi salute<\/a> that he made, twice, while speaking at a Trump inauguration event on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class>Musk, who has a history of aligning himself with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/world\/tommy-robinson-elon-musk-want-freed-jail-rcna186084\" target=\"_blank\">far-right figures<\/a> and promoting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2024\/jan\/22\/elon-musk-visits-auschwitz-antisemitism-twitter-x\" target=\"_blank\">antisemitic conspiracy theories<\/a> &mdash; and then occasionally&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/11\/29\/investing\/elon-musk-dealbook-summit\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">apologizing<\/a>for his public remarks &mdash; suggested that the backlash to his gesture was part of a Democratic-led hoax. &ldquo;The &lsquo;everyone is Hitler&rsquo; attack is sooo tired,&rdquo; he wrote in <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1881536518206218445\" target=\"_blank\">a post on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class>He later <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1882406209187409976\" target=\"_blank\">attempted to make a series of Nazi jokes<\/a> on X, writing puns like &ldquo;Bet you did nazi that coming,&rdquo; accompanied by a crying-laughing emoji.<\/p>\n<p>In his speech Saturday, Musk said he was &ldquo;very excited&rdquo; for the AfD. &ldquo;I think you are really the best hope for Germany,&rdquo; he told the crowd to cheers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-activity-map=\"expanded-byline-article-bottom\">\n<div data-testid=\"byline-thumbnail\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/author\/clarissa-jan-lim-ncpn1307846\" tabindex=\"-1\"><picture data-testid=\"picture\"><source media=\"(min-width: 320px)\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_focal-60x60,f_auto,q_auto:best\/newscms\/2024_08\/3635688\/clarissa-jan-lim-msnbc.png\" alt height=\"48\" width=\"48\"><\/source><\/picture><\/a><\/div>\n<p><span data-testid=\"byline-name\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/author\/clarissa-jan-lim-ncpn1307846\"> Clarissa-je Lim<\/a><\/span><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking\/trending news blogger for BLN Digital. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/top-stories\/latest\/elon-musk-afd-germany-speech-nazi-jokes-salutes-rcna189283\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the heels of the backlash to his gestures at a Donald Trump inauguration event and his attempts to make Nazi-related jokes on X, Elon Musk told supporters of Germany&rsquo;s far-right party on Saturday that there is &ldquo;too much of a focus on past guilt.&rdquo; Speaking virtually at an Alternative for Germany (AfD) campaign event [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}