Following the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party’s election victory in Saxony-Anhalt, the international press has taken an interest in how the party generates attention and networks with nationalist movements around the world. As part of his research at the Research Institute Social Cohesion at the HBI, Jan Rau examined media coverage of the AfD in the context of the 2025 federal election. He recently spoke with the British daily newspaper The Guardian about his findings.
You can read the article here: The AfD Won a Shock Election in Germany. Elon Musk Was Thrilled.
Jan Rau reports that Elon Musk’s livestream with Alice Weidel in the run-up to the federal election brought her a great deal of attention on the X platform and in traditional media. This demonstrates a classic agenda-setting effect. For more insight, read this article on our Media Blog: Elon Musk, the AfD and the Agenda-Setting of the Radical Right in the 2025 German Federal Election.
Musk’s involvement in X’s platform governance has also made it easier for far-right extremist content to spread, from which the AfD indirectly benefits. However, only about five percent of Germans currently use X as a news source (see the 2026 Reuters Digital News Report).