Trump hailed the result as a "GREAT DAY FOR GERMANY," while the far-right AfD party that Elon Musk has championed made historic gains.

The Christian Democratic Union party is projected to win the election, but the far-right Alternative for Germany is set for its best result since World War II.

The racist, far-right, pro-Russia AfD— founded in 2013 as an anti-European Union party—is an outlier even among Europe’s nationalist parties. One senior leader has been twice convicted of using banned Nazi slogans; the party has also been under observation by the German domestic intelligence agency for suspected extremism.

Musk has emerged as a fervent supporter of Alternative for Germany, a far-right, anti-immigrant party that is polling in second place ahead of Germany's parliamentary election.

The conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leads the polls with an estimated 29% of the vote, going by the exit polls, while the incumbent Social Democratic Party (SPD) is third with 16%.

In spite of the Tesla CEO's best efforts, the AfD performed no better than had been expected when snap elections were called.

The leading candidate, Friedrich Merz, a conservative who has adopted many of the AfD’s hard-line positions on immigration, used his closing statement of the debate to promise his voters that he would never allow the AfD into his government. Under him, he said, the firewall would hold.

United States of America tech billionaire, Elon Musk has asked citizens of Germany to vote for Alternative for Germany, AfD, party, in the Sunday, February 23, 2025 general election. Musk, who became US president Donald Trump’s adviser,

The AfD is consistently polling second in Germany and made gains in recent regional elections while its leader was invited by Tesla owner Elon Musk for a live talk where he endorsed them