Elon Musk took his support for Germany’s far-right party to the next level on Thursday, engaging in a live chat with the party’s frontwoman Alice Wedel.

The 74-minute conversation covered energy policy, the German bureaucracy, Adolf Hitler, Mars and the meaning of life.

The world’s richest man explicitly urged Germans to support the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the upcoming elections.

It’s the tech billionaire’s latest controversial foray into European politics.

The discussion has progressed considerably as Elon Musk faces accusations of interfering in Germany’s snap election.

But this interview was conducted in English and can be said to be an opportunity for the German Alternative for Germany to reach an international audience through Musk’s X platform.

Knowing his close relationship with Donald Trump, Alice Weddle made sure to express her support for the US president-elect and his team.

She insists her party is “conservative” and “liberal” but has been “negatively positioned” as extremist by mainstream media.

German authorities have officially classified some elements of the Alternative for Germany as right-wing extremists.

one BBC News Investigation There have been links between a number of party figures and far-right networks in the past year, while Björn Höcke, the party’s leading figure on the far right, was fined last year for using a banned Nazi phrase – although he denied doing so intentionally Made.

During the conversation, Weidel claimed that Hitler was actually a “communist,” despite the fact that the Nazi leader who invaded the Soviet Union was clearly anti-communist.

“He’s not a conservative,” she said. “He’s not a liberal. He’s a communist, a socialist.”

She also described Hitler as an “anti-Semitic socialist.”

On other issues, she and Musk agreed, and sometimes even chuckled, about Germany’s notorious bureaucracy, the “crazy” abandonment of nuclear power, tax cuts, free speech and the need for “wokeness.”

In a conversation that was sometimes stilted and sometimes surprising, a surreal moment came when Wedel asked Musk if he believed in God.

For those wondering, the answer is that he is open to the idea as he seeks to “learn as much as possible about the universe.”

While this redemption was highly anticipated, it certainly wasn’t on many people’s bingo cards.

The Alternative for Germany, which also opposes Berlin’s arms aid to Ukraine, ranks second in German opinion polls and is scheduled to hold snap federal elections on February 23.

However, it could not come to power because other parties would not cooperate with it.

But that didn’t stop Elon Musk from hailing Wedel as “the leading candidate to run Germany.”

He justified his intervention by citing his significant investments in the country — notably a massive Tesla factory outside Berlin.

He dismissed suggestions that the Alternative for Germany was far-right When labeling before Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz is a “fool”.

Scholz’s chances of retaining the chancellorship looked slim but later insisted he was “remaining calm” over Elon Musk’s attacks.

But the billionaire’s intervention alarmed some leaders, who warned against misinformation and undue influence.