Former Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) expresses concern about Donald Trump’s renewed election victory and the influence of billionaire Elon Musk on the future president. “If someone in politics doesn’t allow win-win situations, but only knows winners and losers, then that’s it a very difficult task for multilateralism,” Merkel told the magazine “Spiegel” about Trump. She does not consider “this mutual outdoing” to be a political virtue and was not her style. She feels sad that Democrat Kamala Harris didn’t win the election: “I would have wished it to be different.”
With regard to Musk, Merkel said: “If a person like him is the owner of 60 percent of all satellites orbiting in space, then that must concern us enormously in addition to the political questions.” In the many crises of her chancellorship, politics is the last one “If this final authority is too heavily influenced by companies, whether through capital power or technological capabilities, then that is it an unprecedented challenge for all of us.”
Merkel governed simultaneously with Trump from 2017 to 2021 and met with him several times. The former Chancellor now said that Trump was very curious and wanted to know details. “But only to test them for his own advantage, to find arguments that strengthen him and weaken others,” she added. “The more people there were in the room, the greater his urge to be the winner. You can’t chat with him, Every encounter is a competition: you or me.” Other heads of government should under no circumstances adapt to this style, warned Merkel: “Otherwise you won’t get anything done politically.” Merkel’s memoirs with the title “Freedom” will be published on Tuesday.
