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Ford and Musk. They Made Cars. They Backed Fascists

Each age’s premier industrialist has had appalling politics.

Since his initial tweet, Musk has doubled down on his involvement in the upcoming election, authoring an op-ed in Germany’s leading Sunday newspaper and offering to stream over X an interview with the AfD’s leader later this month. Germany’s current government, its leading political parties (except AfD, of course), and its unions and other civil society groups have all noted that no foreign industrialist has ever intervened in a German election before, though Musk has responded that it’s precisely his investment in German-based manufacturing that gives him the standing to do that. For that matter, in opening X to a range of far-right loudmouths and conspiracy-peddlers, a number of them parroting antisemitic myths and tropes, Musk has been on the receiving end of a condemnatory statement from the Anti-Defamation League.

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