You know that “Germany” is not one person doing stuff, right? And that the current government is different from the one when the Tesla plant was approved and that that was also in big part done by one of the federal states? And that that was long before Musk bought Twitter and fryed his brain?

How so? What do you find silly about it?

Why?

The ‘success’ has also been established in Germany when he made it available on his Xitter-account.

Strafgesetzbuch (StGB) § 5 Auslandstaten mit besonderem Inlandsbezug

Das deutsche Strafrecht gilt, unabhängig vom Recht des Tatorts, für folgende Taten, die im Ausland begangen werden:

(…)

3. Gefährdung des demokratischen Rechtsstaatesa)

a) in den Fällen des § 86 Absatz 1 und 2, wenn Propagandamittel im Inland wahrnehmbar verbreitet oder der inländischen Öffentlichkeit zugänglich gemacht werden und der Täter Deutscher ist oder seine Lebensgrundlage im Inland hat,

b) in den Fällen des § 86a Absatz 1 Nummer 1, wenn ein Kennzeichen im Inland wahrnehmbar verbreitet oder in einer der inländischen Öffentlichkeit zugänglichen Weise oder in einem im Inland wahrnehmbar verbreiteten Inhalt (§ 11 Absatz 3) verwendet wird und der Täter Deutscher ist oder seine Lebensgrundlage im Inland hat,

c) in den Fällen der §§ 89, 90a Abs. 1 und des § 90b, wenn der Täter Deutscher ist und seine Lebensgrundlage im räumlichen Geltungsbereich dieses Gesetzes hat, und

d) in den Fällen der §§ 90 und 90a Abs. 2;

German Criminal Code (StGB)

Section 5 Foreign offenses with a special domestic connection

German criminal law applies, regardless of the law of the place of the offense, to the following offenses committed abroad:

(…)

3. Endangering the democratic constitutional state

a) in the cases of Section 86 (1) and (2), if propaganda material is perceptibly disseminated in Germany or made available to the domestic public and the perpetrator is German or has his livelihood in Germany,

b) in the cases of Section 86a (1) no. 1, if a distinctive sign is perceptibly disseminated in Germany or used in a manner accessible to the domestic public or in content perceptibly disseminated in Germany (Section 11 (3)) and the perpetrator is German or has his livelihood in Germany,

c) in the cases of Sections 89, 90a (1) and Section 90b if the perpetrator is German or has his livelihood in Germany. 1 and Section 90b, if the offender is German and has his or her livelihood in the territorial scope of this Act, and

d) in the cases of Sections 90 and 90a (2);

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Elon wouldn’t visit Germany as long as he might face consequences and I don’t think the US would extradite him.

We also have laws against citizens negotiating with foreign governments on behalf of the United States.

The effect of his actions happened in Germany, that’s enough. I don’t think it’s among the laws where it’s sufficient if the victim is German, and Musk isn’t German so that category doesn’t apply either. It’s also not a war crime, genocide, etc, where Germany prosecutes anyone doing anything to anyone anywhere.

OTOH no, Steinmeier is not going to authorise prosecution over this. Even assuming it is an insult and not a pointedly formulated, and wrong, critique, the point of the law in practice is to not use it.

It can if you are rich. But if you pirate a movie the swat team will raid your home and sue you for millions.

I disagree that it’s similar. In the US, despiee the congress passing laws or not, which affects the general bulk of the legislative process, the president is a figure of extreme power. As demonstrated even recently, the president is free to pass executive orders bypassing congress (which Trump did 220 times in one mandate) and bypass the legal system by unilaterally forgiving people who have been convicted of crimes (which Biden used to bail out his own son) and appointing supreme court judges and heads of critical regulatory state organizations unilaterally without approval of congress (which makes the agencies like the fda, ftc, epa and usda essentially toothless and ineffective at carrying out their functions properly). This is no small power. You can trade off on massive quid-pro-quo on that. He CAN do it not because the party he leads is brainless and are unable to argue, but because they stand to massively gain on his decisions if they support him. Why ? Because the US president has a ridiculously disproportionate amount of power focused on one single person and the US people simply have to suck it up. What are you going to do, vote for the OTHER corrupt party ?

No position of the European hierarchy has even close to the amount of power the US president has over that many people. No one in the EU can unilaterally appoint heads of the European Court of Justice or regulatory organs, no one in the EU can say a convicted felon at the ECJ level now walks free because he’s the son of the president or the friend of the president. Nothing in the US works remotely similar. The US structure is, imho, made in such a way that it’s liable to incur severe corruption, a fact that is not only public knowledge, but lately both parties even overtly flaunt how much they can bend the rules to their personal gain and nobody is even doing anything. Look at Biden, look at Trump. It’s a travesty.

Thank you, I won’t worry too much about DOGE. Unfortunately you’re right about the rest too. These people have too much money to influence politics.