{"id":820378,"date":"2025-01-16T10:12:01","date_gmt":"2025-01-16T16:12:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/16\/germanys-social-democrats-call-for-antitrust-act-to-clip-elon-musks-power\/"},"modified":"2025-01-16T10:12:01","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T16:12:01","slug":"germanys-social-democrats-call-for-antitrust-act-to-clip-elon-musks-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/16\/germanys-social-democrats-call-for-antitrust-act-to-clip-elon-musks-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany\u2019s Social Democrats call for antitrust Act to clip Elon Musk\u2019s power"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A senior lawmaker from Chancellor Olaf Scholz\u2019s Social Democrats railed against Mr Elon Musk\u2019s interference in German politics and called for a new antitrust Act to constrain his influence in the corporate world.<\/p>\n

\u201cElon Musk\u2019s renewed provocations are more than irritating,\u201d said Mr Dirk Wiese, deputy caucus leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Germany\u2019s Bundestag. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s high time to push ahead with a modern version of the Sherman Antitrust Act,\u201d he added, referring to the 1890 US law that banned monopolistic business practices.<\/p>\n

A modern-day version would essentially lead to a break-up of Mr Musk\u2019s increasingly \u201cmonopolistic\u201d conglomerate of companies, Mr Wiese told Bloomberg News on Dec 22.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the comments will likely intensify the war of words with the world\u2019s richest person, it is unclear whether regulators in the US, where Mr Musk\u2019s businesses are headquartered, will agree with his proposal. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Musk, whose companies span electric carmaker Tesla Inc, SpaceX, social media platform X and tunnelling start-up Boring Co, has waded into German politics twice in recent days on X. In a reply to another user following an attack on a Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg<\/a> on Dec 20, Mr Musk disparaged Mr Scholz as an \u201cincompetent fool\u201d and said he should resign immediately.<\/p>\n

The suspect in the attack has been detained on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and assault. The 50-year-old doctor of Saudi Arabian origin, who works in the region and was identified by police as Taleb A., is accused of driving a car through the market, killing a nine-year-old child and four women. More than 200 were hurt in the incident, which has sparked fierce debate about security and finger-pointing in the aftermath.<\/p>\n

In a separate post prior to the incident, Mr Musk voiced support for the German far-right Alternative for Germany party<\/a>, or AfD, writing: \u201cOnly the AfD can save Germany.\u201d Several media reports have since suggested that the suspect openly sympathised with AfD.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The billionaire, a key adviser to US President-elect Donald Trump, has not held back in expressing his contempt for Mr Scholz, labelling him a \u201cfool\u201d in November after the collapse of Germany\u2019s three-way coalition.<\/p>\n

Mr Scholz\u2019s government has been under pressure to boost security nationwide after several violent attacks in recent months, including a stabbing in the city of Solingen in August that left three people dead and eight wounded.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Polls suggest that public frustration with the government\u2019s migration and asylum policies has helped fuel a recent surge in support for far-right and far-left parties, including for the AfD.<\/p>\n

Mr Musk\u2019s outbursts come just two months before Germans go to the polls in a snap election in February that will see Mr Scholz go up against Christian Democrat Friedrich Merz and AfD candidate Alice Weidel.<\/p>\n

Mr Merz\u2019s CDU\/CSU alliance leads, with support at around 32 per cent, the AfD is second with 19 per cent, and the SPD third at 15.9 per cent, according to the latest Bloomberg polling average.<\/p>\n

Mr Scholz himself took a swipe at Mr Musk on Dec 20 over his political judgment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,\u201d Mr Scholz said. \u201cBut freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain good political advice.\u201d\u00a0BLOOMBERG<\/p>\n

Join\u00a0ST’s Telegram channel<\/a>\u00a0and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A senior lawmaker from Chancellor Olaf Scholz\u2019s Social Democrats railed against Mr Elon Musk\u2019s interference in German politics and called for a new antitrust Act to constrain his influence in the corporate world. \u201cElon Musk\u2019s renewed provocations are more than irritating,\u201d said Mr Dirk Wiese, deputy caucus leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":820379,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28360,700],"tags":[13813,7299],"class_list":{"0":"post-820378","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germanys","8":"category-social","9":"tag-germanys","10":"tag-social"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}