Poland’s sports minister Sławomir Nitras has said that no self-respecting Pole should buy a Tesla vehicle.
He made the comments on January 27 as he joined Prime Minister Donald Tusk in slamming Tesla owner and US tech billionaire Elon Musk for his remarks during a German rally by the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
During a video call at the event on January 25, the Trump-supporting entrepreneur said that Germany needed to be proud of its culture and of being a great nation.
Musk spoke about the need for Germany to get over its “guilt” for its Nazi past and of preserving German culture rather than having it diluted in what he called multiculturalism.
In reference to the country’s Nazi past, he said: “Children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their great-grandparents,” adding: “We focus too much on the guilt of the past and we need to overcome that”.
Musk has recently expressed much support for the AfD as “the last hope for Germany” and has interviewed AfD leader and its candidate for chancellor Alice Weidel on his X platform.
Tusk slammed Musk in a social media post, saying that talking about a “Great Germany” and the need to get over Nazi crimes sounded very familiar and ominous coming just ahead of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, which was commemorated on 27 January in Poland.
Nitras went further and called for Poles to boycott purchasing Teslas in protest at his stance regarding Germany and the AfD.
“No self-respecting Pole should buy a Tesla. We need to produce a tough response to Musk’s worlds, including going for a consumer boycott”, Nitras told radio Tok FM on January 27.
The sports minister added: “Maybe Musk, with his billions feels no threat, but all of us who live in Central Europe can’t forget what happened 80 years ago and can’t be indifferent to it.”
“Nazism is a monster which can be reborn and in particular on the day of the liberation of Auschwitz we need to stand up for truth,” he added.
Liberal politicians such as Tusk and Nitras are keen to reduce the influence Musk could have on Polish politics after the entrepreneur’s recent interventions in German and British politics.
They may have noted that, according to a recent poll for daily Rzeczpospolita carried out by the SW Research agency, 33 per cent of Poles were prepared to be influenced by Musk.
In addition, 11 per cent said they were happy to follow the entrepreneur’s recommendations about who they should vote for in the upcoming Polish elections inn May.
Musk was also reported to be purchasing prime real estate in Warsaw in the form of a penthouse apartment on the 52nd floor of the highest skyscraper in Europe for €6 million.
The opposition Conservatives (PiS) and the right-wing Confederation party are both keen to curry favour with the Trump administration but, given Poland’s history, neither is likely to feel comfortable with Musk’s views on Germany.
However, some of the Confederation’s MEPs have already joined the Europe of Sovereign Nations group in the European Parliament, which was founded by the AfD.
