The opinion editor at a German newspaper resigned after the paper ran an op-ed written by American billionaire Elon Musk endorsing the country’s far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) in the European nation’s upcoming election.
The editor was a longtime employee at Die Welt, the German daily newspaper owned by publishing conglomerate Axel Springer.
“I always enjoyed heading the opinion section of WELT and WAMS,” Eva Marie Kogel said in a post on X, the social media site Musk purchased for $44 billion in 2022.
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“Today an article by Elon Musk appeared in Welt am Sonntag. I handed in my resignation yesterday after it went to print,” she continued.
In the op-ed, the South Africa-born billionaire said he felt entitled to weigh in on Germany’s political prospect due to his investments in the country—including a massive Tesla factory that sparked controversy earlier this year after satellite photo analysis showed the company cut down an estimated 500,000 trees at the site.
Musk’s opinion piece was published alongside a rebuttal written by the paper’s incoming editor-in-chief, Jan Philipp Burgard, criticizing AfD’s positions on immigration, leaving the European Union, and members like Björn Höcke, the AfD leader in Thuringia who once criticized the country’s Holocaust memorial and was convicted and fined for using Nazi slogans.
The new editor also defended the decision to publish the Musk op-ed.
“Democracy and journalism thrive on freedom of expression. This includes dealing with polarising positions and classifying them journalistically,” Burgard told Reuters, alongside Welt Group’s incoming publisher Ulf Poschardt in a statement on Saturday.
