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BERLIN: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says he’s staying “cool” against critical personal comments made by Elon Musk but finds it worrying that the US billionaire makes the effort to get involved in a general election by endorsing the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Scholz was reacting after Musk, a close ally to US President-elect Donald Trump, called the chancellor a “fool” after his coalition government collapsed in November and later backed the AfD in an opinion piece he wrote for a major newspaper in Germany.
Scholz, head of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), said in comments published Saturday by the German magazine Stern that there is “nothing new” in criticism by “rich media entrepreneurs who do not appreciate social democratic politics and do not hold back with their opinions.”
“You have to stay cool,” Scholz told Stern.
“I find it much more worrying than such insults that Musk is supporting a party like the AfD, which is in parts right-wing extremist, which preaches rapprochement with Putin’s Russia and wants to weaken transatlantic relations,” Scholz said.
The AfD is monitored by Germany’s domestic intelligence service on suspicion of being right-wing extremist and has already been recognized as such in some individual German states.
Germany will hold an early parliamentary electionon Feb. 23 after Scholz’s thee-party coalition collapsed in November in a dispute over how to revitalize the country’s stagnant economy.
The vice chancellor and economy minister, Robert Habeck, also warned Musk against getting involved in Germany’s politics.
“Hands off our democracy, Mr. Musk!” Habeck said in an interview with the Spiegel magazine.
“The combination of enormous wealth, control over information and networks, the use of artificial intelligence and the willingness to ignore rules is a frontal attack on our democracy,” said Habeck, the Green Party’s candidate for chancellor.
Musk recently caused uproar after backing the AfD in an opinion piece for the Welt am Sonntag, leading to the resignation of the paper’s opinion editor, Eva Marie Kogel, in protest.
“The Alternative for Germany (AfD) is the last spark of hope for this country,” Musk wrote in his translated commentary.
The Tesla Motors CEO also wrote that his investment in Germany gave him the right to comment on the country’s condition.
The AfD is polling strongly, but its candidate for the top job, Alice Weidel, has no realistic chance of becoming chancellor because other parties refuse to work with the far-right party.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia said Saturday it expelled two boats ferrying about 300 undocumented migrants from Myanmar from the country’s waters.
The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) said the boats were located two nautical miles (3.7 kilometers) southwest of the northern resort of Langkawi late Friday evening.
“MMEA provided assistance, including food and clean drinking water, before expelling the boats out to the national maritime border to continue their journey,” Director-General Mohd Rosli Abdullah said in a statement.
“We are also working closely with Thai authorities to obtain additional information on the movements of these boats.”
On Friday Malaysian police detained almost 200 suspected Rohingya migrants from Myanmar after their boat ran aground in Langkawi.
The Rohingya experience persecution in their predominantly Buddhist homeland of Myanmar, with many fleeing to affluent, Muslim-majority Malaysia or refugee camps in Bangladesh.
They often endure harrowing, months-long sea journeys to arrive in Malaysia by boat or sneak into the country via its porous border with Thailand.
If caught, they are often sent to detention centers that rights groups say are typically overcrowded and filthy.