German climate change skeptic Naomi Seibt – who has been cast as the “anti-Greta” for expressing views diametrically opposed to those of Greta Thunberg – has filed for political asylum in the U.S., claiming she is being denied protection from persecution in her homeland.
Speaking to Fox News Digital Tuesday, Seibt, 25, said she is currently in America legally and has submitted a petition under Section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act to secure permanent residence in the interests of her own safety.
“I have now applied for asylum, which means that I’m waiting for an interview. And, in the meantime, I’m here legally,” she said. “My goal in the meantime is to become an American citizen in the future because this country has given me so much hope.”
Seibt said tech billionaire Elon Musk is supporting her asylum appeal after he reached out to her on his platform X following her decision to vote for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party.
“I made a post during the European elections in June 2024, where I said, ‘My name is Naomi Seibt, and I’m voting for the AfD,’ and that was the very first time that Musk interacted with me – Elon privately messaged me on x about the AfD,” she said.
“Over the course of last year, I was obviously retweeted a lot by Elon Musk, and I interacted with him personally in private messages just about what’s going on in Germany.”
Discussing the political climate in Europe, Seibt told Fox: “It is illegal to damage the reputation of a politician in Germany. This law was extended under Angela Merkel, Article 188, and now people are being arrested. And their houses are being raided for just social media posts. As soon as I come back to Germany, I feel that they will try to arrest me.”
“In 2024, I found out that I had been spied on by German intelligence for years. Simultaneously, I keep receiving death threats from Antifa,” she claimed.
“I went to the German police, and they told me that they can’t do anything about it as long as I have not actually been raped or killed. I am not getting protection from the German government even though I am at major risk of potentially being killed.”
Asked about being regularly juxtaposed with Thunberg, 22, Seibt said: “I had started becoming known and internationally recognized as the anti-Greta Thunberg in 2020.
“I was barely 19 years old and never expected to be recognized as a right-wing figure. The German media called me the anti-Greta, they demonize me as the ‘anti-Greta’, like an antichrist for Greta Thunberg.
“I’m Naomi Seibt and want to be recognized as who I am because I’m not just some puppet poster figure for the right wing.”
Hailing from Munster in North Rhine-Westphalia, Seibt’s mother is reportedly a lawyer who has represented the AfD. The activist – who prefers the term “climate realist” to “climate denier,” which she argues invokes Holocaust denialism. She first made headlines in her homeland while a high school student when she composed a nationalist poem, “Sometimes I Keep Silent,” that was published on a right-wing blog.
She subsequently built up a large social media following by uploading videos to YouTube, beginning in May 2019, with titles like “Climate change – just hot air?”, “Fierce without Feminism”, and “Message to the Media – HOW DARE YOU?”
She was first compared to Thunberg by the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper after she delivered a star-making address that November at the European Institute for Climate and Energy’s International Climate and Energy Conference.
Seibt was subsequently hired by The Heartland Institute, a U.S. think-tank based in Chicago, which has previously lobbied on behalf of tobacco firms, supports fracking, and rejects the scientific consensus on climate change, to be the face of its climate denial campaign.
The association saw her speak at events like Heartland’s International Conference on Climate Change at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas in fall 2021, which was dubbed the “anti-Cop26.”
In addition to attacking climate “alarmism,” the YouTuber has been accused of engaging in antisemitism, white nationalism, and spreading Covid-19 misinformation during the pandemic. It has previously promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory.
Should she become a U.S. citizen, Seibt will find her position on the environment neatly aligned with that of the Trump administration, the president himself having regularly dismissed global warming as a “scam” and a “hoax,” and backing a return to fossil fuel exploitation over investment in alternative renewable energy sources.
