On September 20, 2026, the AfD won its second German state election in a fortnight, taking Mecklenburg-Vorpommern with 38.3% of the vote and pushing the CDU — the party of Angela Merkel — out of a state legislature for the first time in its history. Two weeks earlier, when the same AfD candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, delivered a record 43.8% in Saxony-Anhalt, Elon Musk replied to the party's celebratory post on X with a simple line: "Gut gemacht!" — well done.
British readers watching Musk's relationship with Reform UK over the past eighteen months might reasonably expect this. It isn't what happened. In the same window Musk was praising the AfD, he was publicly calling Nigel Farage "weak sauce who will do nothing" on immigration — the latest round in a feud that has run since January 2025, when Musk said Farage "doesn't have what it takes" to lead his own party.
The Reform UK Feud, in Brief
Musk and Farage met at Mar-a-Lago in December 2024 to discuss a substantial donation to Reform UK. Weeks later it fell apart: Farage publicly distanced himself from Musk's call to free jailed far-right activist Tommy Robinson, and Musk retaliated within hours, posting that Farage "doesn't have what it takes" and suggesting he should be replaced as leader. Musk then threw his support behind Robinson directly and, later, behind Rupert Lowe's breakaway "Restore Britain" project — explicitly positioned to Farage's right. By May 2026, Musk was accusing Farage of "lying" about the collapsed donation; by August, he was calling him "weak sauce" over the party's immigration policy. Farage's own response has been to accuse Musk of "splitting the Right" in Britain.
So Why Germany and Not Britain?
The contrast is not really a contradiction once you separate what Musk is reacting to in each country. In Germany, he has never had a personal relationship with Weidel comparable to the Farage friendship-then-falling-out — his AfD engagement has stayed purely transactional and ideological: praise for election results, a direct January 2025 appeal to German voters to back the party, nothing personal to sour. In Britain, Musk tried to build a personal and financial relationship with Farage specifically, and it broke down over a concrete disagreement — Robinson — rather than over ideology. Musk didn't move right of Farage because Reform UK became too moderate for him in the abstract; he moved because Farage, in his account, wasn't willing to go where Musk personally wanted to go on one specific figure.
That distinction matters for how seriously to take Musk's interventions in either country. His AfD comments are pure external validation with no relationship risk attached — he can say "Gut gemacht!" and walk away. His Reform UK commentary is personal, grudge-inflected, and entangled with which British right-wing figure he currently prefers, which is precisely why it has proven more chaotic and more consequential for UK politics: a stalled multi-million-pound donation, a boosted rival party, and a very public war of words that Farage has had to manage inside his own movement.
The Vance Precedent Looms Over Both
Musk isn't acting alone. Vice President JD Vance used his February 2025 Munich Security Conference speech to directly attack Germany's "firewall" against the AfD — "there's no room for firewalls," he told a stunned room of European officials — before meeting AfD leader Alice Weidel privately for half an hour. No equivalent moment has happened publicly between the Trump administration and Reform UK, but the German precedent is the clearest evidence available that senior figures around Trump are willing to intervene directly in a European ally's domestic politics when it suits them. Reform UK, and British commentators watching Musk's on-off relationship with Farage, should assume that door is not closed.
