For their most famous campaigner, Elon Musk, it’s a bitter failure.

No matter how hard the Tesla CEO tried to boost its popularity and raise its profile on his X social media site, exit polls suggest the AfD could not pick up any additional votes as a result of his vocal backing. The party had been predicted to pull in that degree of support in November, when snap elections were first called, and it barely budged.

“Germany voted for suicide,” wrote a disappointed Naomi Seibt. Gen Z’s most prominent AfD influencer in Germany counts Musk as one of her 400,000 social media followers.

Musk, the world’s wealthiest tycoon, had in recent weeks repeatedly urged Germans to cast their ballot not for the conservative right-wing Christian Democrats (CDU)—or even the small-state Liberals (FDP) favored by many entrepreneurs—but for the AfD.

His enthusiasm and knack for predicting trends helped convince many Trump supporters he could work his magic in Germany just as he had in the United States, where he helped land the ex-president back in the White House. 

Jewish groups decry AfD as ‘a hotbed for anti-Semitism’

Musk argued AfD could win the election and pitched its candidate, Alice Weidel, as a possible chancellor despite the near-zero likelihood of either outcome. In the process, he whitewashed its history as a party that repeatedly discovers neo-Nazis, Nazi sympathizers, and Holocaust deniers in its ranks.

“The AfD policies are identical to those of the U.S. Democratic Party when Obama took office!” he claimed in December. “I don’t think there is a single difference.”

Suicidal empathy

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 23, 2025

A total of 60 Jewish groups, however, warned the AfD was “a hotbed for anti-Semitism, racism, and misanthropy.” 

Sunday was no different, as the party found itself confronted with another racist in its ranks. According to Germany’s leading Jewish daily, Jüdische Allgemeine, Weidel did not rule out inviting into her parliamentary group an AfD politician from Dortmund caught calling himself the “friendly face” of the Nazis. 

Despite the AfD’s frequent controversies, Musk repeatedly portrayed the far-right party instead as Germany’s only hope. He penned an op-ed in Die Welt (a national daily owned by the same company as Politico); platformed Weidel in an exclusive interview on X; and appeared virtually at its biggest election rally to whip up morale. 

“It could decide the entire fate of Europe, maybe the fate of the world. That is the significance of this election,” he told AfD party members at the rally.

Instead of shy AfD voters, there was ‘suicidal empathy’

Musk’s full-throated endorsement of the AfD likely has come at a potentially high cost. His Tesla cars have seen their popularity drop: Vehicle sales fell 60% in Germany last month from January 2024, and its market share of 3.7% is about a sixth of what it was just two years ago. 

Contrary to his hopes, however, the conservative CDU won on Sunday with Friedrich Merz expected to become Germany’s next chancellor as soon as he can cobble together a governing coalition. Merz has already ruled out a collaboration of any kind with the AfD in parliament.

Musk had hoped his star power as the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX could prevent that. Going into Sunday’s election, he predicted Weidel would outperform expectations, citing his theory of the shy AfD voter.

“AfD polls are artificially low for the same reason Trump’s were, but even more so,” he wrote. “People in Germany are concerned to say they would vote for AfD, because they don’t trust who is asking.” 

Following the outcome of the vote on Sunday, Musk took down a post supporting the AfD that he had pinned to his X profile.

His only acknowledgement of its disappointing result relative to his expectations was a two-word reply complaining Germans would rather die than defend themselves against Islamist jihadis.

“Suicidal empathy,” he wrote.