“You think of an invasion…” Elon Musk criticized Berlin’s support for NGOs that rescue migrants in the Mediterranean on Saturday. “Is the German public aware of this? “, the American billionaire wrote on his social network on Friday (ex-Twitter) by sharing a post from an account called “RadioGenoa” in which he denounced the rescue of migrants in the Mediterranean by Berlin-backed NGOs and concluded: “Let’s hope that the AfD (German far-right party ) wins the elections.”
“Yes, that’s what we call saving lives,” the Foreign Office replied to the entrepreneur on X. “So you’re actually proud of it. Interesting. Frankly, I doubt that the majority of the German public supports this. Have you conducted a survey? Surely it is a violation of Italian sovereignty for Germany to transport large numbers of illegal immigrants onto Italian soil? “You think of an invasion…” added the head of the electric vehicle manufacturers Tesla and SpaceX on the night from Friday to Saturday.
“Legal and European obligation”
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Thursday defended the role of NGOs that help migrants seeking to enter Europe via Italy. “Saving people from drowning in the sea is a legal and European obligation,” she emphasized. “Illegal immigration must stop, but I am fully in favor of significantly expanding and simplifying legal immigration,” wrote Elon Musk on X.
State elections will take place in Germany, Bavaria (south) and Hesse (centre) on October 8th. On Friday, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni warned that her country no longer wanted to accept migrants rescued by foreign NGOs. Rome accuses Berlin of financing several aid organizations in the Mediterranean, some of which operate under the German flag. Giorgia Meloni wrote to Chancellor Olaf Scholz this week to express her “astonishment” at these subsidies.
With the strong rise of the AfD, whose voting intentions are reaching record levels, the reception of refugees in Germany has once again become the focus of the debate. At the beginning of September, Elon Musk threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League (ADL, which fights anti-Semitism and racism), which he accused of defaming his social network.