A difficult one faces today (9.1.25), the leader of the far-right AfD party in , Alice Weidel (Alice Weidel) as her interview with . On the one hand, federal president of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) wants to emphasise that her party is “the only one that can save Germany”, as Musk had formulated on the Platform X just before Christmas. On the other hand, Weidell must explain why no one has fought more strongly against Musk’s German Tesla plant than her party. CORVERSE If it depended on the AfD, the Tesla plant in Grunheide (Grünheide) in eastern Germany would never have been built. No one knows this better than André Thierig, Musk’s representative in Germany. It was only four months ago that the factory manager at Grünheide spoke to his employees before the Brandenburg election: just watch the AfD. There are parties that are “completely against us,” Thierig said at an operational meeting on 19 September 2024, according to a report by Handelsblatt. “They say Tesla’s settlement is wrong, that Tesla’s settlement is bad, that Tesla must be state-owned, that Tesla does not belong to Brandenburg”. His recommendation: “Please examine it very carefully and if you do your cross, do it in the right place”. Weidell calls Tesla “dangerous waste” Three days later, AfD became the second strongest party in Brandenburg with 29.2% of the vote. This meant winning the political power that most criticised Tesla in Germany. Maybe Musk doesn’t realize that, maybe he thinks he can change the AfD line. ADVERSE In November 2019, a week after Musk announced the construction of a factory in Germany, Weidell succeeded against Tesla. “A burned Tesla becomes dangerous waste, the battery cannot be rejected”, the politician commented in a report on a burned Model 3, adding that the incident shows “the problems we will face with the electric car in the future”. Tesla’s factory approval process began in early January 2020, while its construction began in mid-February. “This is a wrong location choice,” Kathleen Muxel said, a member of AfD in the Brandenburg state parliament, at a rally against the planned facility in June 2020. While Brandenburg Finance Minister Jerg Steinbach (SPD) defended the first drilling with stakes in the state’s parliament, AfD called for the construction to be stopped. Two months later, the party protested in the Grünheide market square. “Tesla in Grünheide – a nightmare for people and nature” was the slogan. The “fight against the Gigafactory factory” had begun. AfD Members Christoph Bird (Christoph Berndt) and Jens Maier (Jens Maier) also voiced their criticism, protesting the “lack of sustainability of electronic cars” in addition to possible groundwater damage. When Märkische Oderzeitung asked local councillors of Grünheide for their appreciation for Tesla’s progress in August 2020, SPD, CDU, FDP and Left Party were positive and in some cases enthusiastic. On the other hand, AfD MP, Muxel criticised “the speed at which the Tesla project is accelerated”. Tesla’s retreat from politicians and administration was “a disgrace to the German constitutional state”. AfD: The Gigafactory plant is not a success For AfD, the fight against Musk was a struggle for home. “Where would we end up if we handed our country over to any “prime billionaire” from America to destroy it at will?” said Muxel in April 2021 and announced “determining resistance from AfD”. “Protecting the homeland is an exercise protection of the environment, even Mr. Musk can write this behind his ears!” The race was turned into a rearguard battle. “We lose. We all lose. Water resources, political dignity, transparency towards citizens,” the AfD complained in July 2021. Tesla produced its first vehicles at Grünheide in March 2022, after which the company applied for the extension of the plant. This was also successful. “Tesla wants to add another 100 hectares of forest to the existing 300 hectares. For deforestation, for development, all this next to the water protection area,” AfD reported. When municipal representatives voted in favour on 8 December 2022, Muxel was angry: “We fought, but we lost. The sense of a banana democracy remains.” In June 2023, 12,000 people worked in Tesla in Grünheide, but the AfD was still angry. What state politicians were selling as a huge success was nothing more than “contributing to the destruction of the domestic German car industry by spreading a “red carpet” of subsidy money for an American company,” the party’s website said. In the past, Tesla boasted the cultural diversity of her workforce. According to factory council president Michaela Schmitz, people from 150 nations, many of them from Turkey, Poland, Syria and India, are working in Gigafactory. That’s what AfD noticed. Citizens could personally meet Tesla’s workers on the train during shift change hours, wrote the party on his website. “Only some of them come from Brandenburg, most from Berlin and yet do not seem to be locals from outside”. AfD’s stance on Tesla has wider political background In the summer of 2023, the party approved its programme for the European elections campaign in Magdeburg. It describes the promotion of electronic mobility as a threat to the German car industry and the supplier industry. Therefore, AfD is ‘generally in favour of maintaining the internal combustion engine’. In Brandenburg, AfD Muxel MP questioned in a debate in the state parliament in October 2023 that Grünheide would benefit from the company’s installation: “What economic development and what positive factor do we have – besides having to remove the garbage in the morning with the construction site at the station?”. Tesla’s factory director warns against AfD As a result, Grünheide’s town hall received many objections to the planned expansion of the plant. The municipality decided to conduct a population survey, in which the majority of citizens opposed Tesla’s plans. Despite the protests, representatives of the municipality gave Tesla the green light in May 2024. AfD voted against. In September, Tesla Thierig’s factory director ascended to the scene of his factory and appealed to the workforce to vote in the “right place” in the upcoming state election. “You may think: what I care, I don’t care what the prime minister’s name is now or who the finance minister is here”. It may not be the most important thing for workers “individually and personally”, Thierig said. “But for us as a company, it’s very, very important”. Tesla has to face “many political leaders. Our approval procedures, our expansion plans, many and many things have political influence.” For AfD this also applies to the new election campaign for federal elections: it does not feel comfortable with mobility as Elon Musk sees it. “Electric cars sell slowly, every third buyer leaves back to the internal combustion engine,” Weidell wrote on Twitter on October 16. “The planned economy of electronic cars imposes bad investments and destroys car industry”. The market must decide, Weidell demanded. “Manufacturers should build what customers want, not what politicians want”. On 28 November, AfD presented its program: “Today’s one-sided preference for electric drive must be stopped immediately, as does public-source charging infrastructure funding”. Four days later, Weidell followed up on X: “The ban on internal combustion engines and obsession with electric cars must be overturned!”. On December 29, Musk spoke to the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. “As someone who has made significant investments in the German industrial and technological landscape, I believe I have the right to speak openly about his political orientation,” he began his comment. Musk then continued as if the AfD had never said a word against his work. Germany needs a party that “not only talks about growth, but also takes political action to create an environment where businesses can thrive without heavy government interference,” Musk wrote. It’s time for bold change. “AfD is the only party that opens this road”.
Germany – Tesla: When the AfD protested against the Musk plant in Brandenburg
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