On the latest episode of The Unknown, Richard Luthmann and I discussed the man of the hour, the moment, and of 2025 so far: Elon Musk.
We took a week off, but since around Christmas 2024, Musk has dominated the headlines in a way that would make Michael Jordan and Donald Trump blush.
It started when Taleb al-Abdulmohsen rammed his car into a German market on December 20, 2024, killing six people.
An immigrant living in Germany for years, Taleb was radicalized.
The story caused a reaction, and Musk’s condemnation of multiculturalism: Europe’s inviting attitude toward immigrants in large numbers from many countries, particularly the Middle East and Asia.
Musk has highlighted crime statistics in Norway and Spain and blamed a deadly Christmas market attack in Germany on "mass unchecked immigration".
Then, Misk dropped a political nuclear bomb. He tweeted out, “Only the AfD can save Germany.”
The AFD is a political party in Germany which opposes multiculturalism.
This drew a strong reaction from numerous sources, who have characterized AFD as far right, akin to the Nazis.
The latest controversy comes after the Alternative for Germany (AfD)'s Maximilian Krah told journalists that SS members weren’t automatically "criminals".
"It depends. You have to assess blame individually. At the end of the war there were almost a million SS. Günter Grass was also in the Waffen SS," he told La Repubblica and the Financial Times, referring to the German novelist who wrote The Tin Drum.
"Before I declare someone a criminal, I want to know what he did."
The SS, or Schutzstaffel, were a Nazi paramilitary group active in the 1930s and 1940s. Among other crimes against humanity, SS members played a leading role in the Holocaust, the genocide of six million Jews and others during World War Two.
In response to the remarks, France’s far-right National Rally (RN) announced it would no longer sit with the AfD in the European Parliament.
Misk did not back down. He continued to defend the party.
Late last week, Musk did a Twitter Space with its leader: Alice Weidel.
Then, he dropped another media nuclear bomb when he started Tweeting about grooming gangs in England. Many of the rapists were Pakistanis, who came to England because of the longstanding multiculturalism policies.
That’s a story which has been around and covered by much of the British press.
Yet, somehow, when the BBC, Sky News, The Guardian, or other British media covered it, the story never gained the kind of traction which Musk gave it with a few Tweets.
As part of his series of Tweets, Musk also came out against the ruling Labour Party and for the Reform Party.
As in Germany, the Reform Party is the most anti-multi culturalism.
His support for Georgia Meloni and Donald Trump show that he believes strong policies to control immigration- legal and illegal- are critical to good policy making. H1B Visas, which benefit his companies, are the only exceptions so far.
With that, the mogul took over the world. He drove the news cycle for weeks, until the California wildfires started driving.
On the show, I called him history’s first, “populist Oligarch.”
He is trying to help install anti-multi-culturalism governments. He may be successful.
Germany will hold elections in February. AFD was polling at 20% before Musk got involved.
If successful, Elon Musk may wind up the most powerful person in human history.
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