BERLIN (Reuters) – U.S. billionaire Elon Musk backed Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) in a guest opinion piece for Germany’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper published online on Saturday that prompted the editor in the comment to resign in protest.

In the comment, published in German by the main paper of the Axel Springer media group, Musk expanded on his post on the social media platform X last week saying that “only the AfD can save Germany.”

“The portrayal of the AfD as right-wing extremists is patently false, considering that Alice Weidel, the party’s leader, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka! For you, is that like Hitler? Please!” Musk said in the piece.

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has classified the AfD at the national level as a suspected case of extremism as of 2021.

Shortly after the piece was published online, the editor of the opinion section, Eva Marie Kogel, wrote to X that she had submitted her resignation, with a link to the comment.

“Democracy and the press develop freedom of expression. This includes dealing with polarizing positions and classifying them in a journalistic way,” pointed out the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Jan Philipp Burgard and Ulf Poschardt, who took over as publisher on January 1, told Reuters.

They said the discussion about Musk’s piece, which had nearly 340 comments hours after it was published, was “very revealing.”

Under Musk’s comment, the newspaper published Burgard’s response.

“Musk’s diagnosis is correct, but his treatment, that only the AfD can save Germany, is not really wrong,” he wrote, referring to the AfD’s desire to leave the European Union and seek rapprochement with Russia as also to appease China.

AfD support from Musk, who also defended his right to weigh in on German politics because of his “significant investment,” comes as Germans are set to vote on February 23 after the collapse of the coalition government led by by Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

The AfD is running second in opinion polls and could hold on to either a center-right or center-left majority, but Germany’s main, more centrist parties have vowed to shun any support from of the AfD at the national level.