German comedian "El Hotzo" sparked outrage after joking about Trumps assassination attempt. The issue at hand has now reached international scale, after even Elon Musk responded to the controversy by tweeting the current German chancellor, Olaf Scholz.
Sebastian Hotz, also known as "El Hotzo", is famous for the political satire he posts on X and Instagram. With 1.4 million followers on Instagram, he has inspired a whole generation of young Germans.
But his latest meme has caused way more controversy than he bargained for.
El Hotzo Implies That He Wants Trump Dead
In his recent tweet, El Hotzo posted a meme, which asked what the last bus ride and Trump have in common. The punchline: Sadly, just missed it.
15 minutes later, he added:
I think it's absolutely fantastic, when fascists die.
The Aftermath
This really blew up because the comedian is, at least to some extent, state-funded.
For those of you who don't know, in Germany, there are public networks and private networks. Every German citizen, regardless if they use it or not, pay a monthly tax, which goes to the public networks.
El Hotzo used to host a radio show on the Berlin-based public network "RBB" (Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg). After the recent controversy, RBB distanced themselves from Sebastian Hotz's statements and ended their collaboration with the comedian "for the time being". But it was too late for drama to be completely avoided.
The outrage went international after Elon Musk responded with a tweet, directly addressing the German head of state Olaf Scholz.
But to be absolutely clear, RBB's decision to work with Sebastian Hotz or not lies with the executives at RBB, not the government.
The whole ordeal has once again forced us to address the age-old question: What counts as a joke?
On the one hand, there are people saying that El Hotzo is knowingly enticing violence against a person with opposing political views.
On the other, a lot of people think, that his tweets are only satire and that Elon Musk is being hypocritical, since he always preaches freedom of speech, especially when talking about comedy.
Maybe this sudden change of heart, has something to do with the fact that Elon Musk wants to financially back the republicans in their election campaign, as he stated after the assassination attempt.
In any case, El Hotzo is taking the situation quite well, already joking about it on his Instagram.
What do you think about this? Should someone like El Hotzo be fired for a tweet?