Millions of Germans are voting Sunday to determine who will control the country’s government, with Germany’s center-left Christian Democratic Union (CDU) expected to garner the biggest vote share—and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) projected to nab a historic number of votes after garnering the endorsement of billionaire Elon Musk.

The conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leads the polls with an estimated 29% of the vote, going by the exit polls, while the incumbent Social Democratic Party (SPD) is third with 16%.

Musk won AfD a massive new audience, and JD Vance added support. That brought the party outsized attention, but the impact in Germany was limited, data shows.

Musk has emerged as a fervent supporter of Alternative for Germany, a far-right, anti-immigrant party that is polling in second place ahead of Germany's parliamentary election.

Alternative for Germany appears to be headed for the strongest showing by a far-right party since World War II in Sunday’s national election and is fielding its first candidate to lead the country.

The leading candidate, Friedrich Merz, a conservative who has adopted many of the AfD’s hard-line positions on immigration, used his closing statement of the debate to promise his voters that he would never allow the AfD into his government. Under him, he said, the firewall would hold.

STORY: While Elon Musk is playing a central role in the U.S. government as head of President Donald Trump's task force to slash government spending, the world’s richest person has also weighed in prominently on politics in Germany.

United States of America tech billionaire, Elon Musk has asked citizens of Germany to vote for Alternative for Germany, AfD, party, in the Sunday, February 23, 2025 general election. Musk, who became US president Donald Trump’s adviser,

The AfD is consistently polling second in Germany and made gains in recent regional elections while its leader was invited by Tesla owner Elon Musk for a live talk where he endorsed them