Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who is set to join President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, has ripped into the German government over the Friday night car attack at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, questioning the competence of Chancellor Olaf Scholz in leading the European country amid a series of extremist incidents.
At least five died and nearly 70 others were injured after a Saudi Arabian doctor barreled his BMW into a crowd of revellers during the busy hours of the Christmas holidays. He has been living in Germany since 2006, officials said yesterday but did not share further details.
After German media identified the suspect as Taleb Abdulmohsen, 50, a self-described “Saudi atheist” with permanent residence status, several reports pointed out he not only held critical views against Islam but also believed Germany had a permissive attitude towards refugees from Muslim countries.
Germany’s interior minister Nancy Fraser said he had “Islamophobic” views. Scholz condemned the attack as “terrible and insane”, drawing sharp jibes from Musk over allegedly ignoring repeated warnings.
A local prosecutor said the motive behind the attack remains unclear, but a possible factor could be his “dissatisfaction with the treatment of Saudi refugees in Germany”.
‘Suicidal Empathy By Germany’
Musk, who had yesterday called him an “incompetent fool” and demanded his resignation, continued his tirade against the German government over reports that it had refused to extradite the suspect to Saudi Arabia citing human rights concerns.
“Yeah, he was obviously a lunatic who should never have been allowed to enter Germany and should have been extradited when Saudi Arabia made the request. Suicidal empathy by the German government,” said the world’s richest man.
Reacting to a report that Abdulmohsen is a Saudi fugitive who Germany granted asylum, he said whoever refused to extradite a “murderer” deserves to be punished severely.
“The guy is obviously an unhinged psychopath who should not have been allowed into Germany and should have been extradited when Saudi Arabia made the request,” he replied to another user.
Musk also sparked a row after calling the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) as the country’s saviour – which is being seen as meddling into another country’s politics. Opinion polls have kept the AfD on the second spot, believing it may thwart a centre-right or centre-left majority, but German mainstream is unlikely to take support from the AfD at the national level.
The German government said yesterday they have taken note of Elon Musk’s remarks, but did not share any comment.
Germany has been hit by several suspected Islamic knife attacks in the past few months. A stabbing spree by a Syrian suspect in August left three people dead at a street festival in Solingen. In June, a cop was killed in a knife attack by an Afghan man.
