I won’t stop thanking you for everything you do. For them, for Spain. And that you are in charge of a management that should be done by others but that, thank God, we have you (…) I send you all the energy and I hope I can see you soon and can be helping there by your side. And I hope I can give a hug and all my energy to those people and be able to contribute a little.
The words could come from any social media account but Carlos Alcaraz recorded them in a video that has gone viral on social media. The one who receives the compliments is Ángel Gaitán, one of the most controversial figures and who has attracted the most attention in the days after the DANA in Valencia.
Mobile phone held up, sports jacket, a green glove and videos from ground zero. It is very likely that anyone who did not know Gaitán before the Valencian tragedy would have already been able to give a face and voice to a mechanic who became influencerhe became a talk show host and has generated hatred and extreme defenses in recent days for his “coverage” of the volunteer work he is doing in the areas most affected by DANA in Valencia.
Videos on TikTok, publications on social networks and appearances in Horizonte, directed by Iker Jiménez, have ended up launching to stardom a figure who has left behind his controversies related to the world of motorsport to transcend and reconvert his figure, profiling himself politically until he becomes visible head of only the people save the people.
A broken elbow, a Tesla and Horizon
“While driving a car, an engine fell on me and I broke my elbow.” Without the possibility of carrying out his day-to-day work, Ángel Gaitán picked up a cell phone, opened a TikTok account and began to tell what his work consisted of.
At least, that’s what he said in an interview for The World in March 2023. He then claimed that he was surprised by the impact that a video had in which he assembled and dismantled parts of a BMW X6. It was 2021. Since that video, Gaitán has gained 3.8 million followers on TikTok and another two million followers on Instagram.
In record time, the mechanic was gaining impact on social networks. Clear, simple language and a message that resonated with the public: “colleagues criticized me for telling secrets that only mechanics should know, but I think that it’s one thing to know how to do something and another thing is for customers to start doing it. The more transparency, the better,” he defends in that same interview.
The secrets quickly turned into complaints that targeted a large part of the sector: other workshops, sellers, the manufacturers themselves, the gas stations. low cost, environmental policies… and Tesla, the brand that ended up taking Gaitán to the mainstream of social networks.
The cold and electric cars. Click on the image to go to the original video
Taking advantage of his popularity on TikTok, he published his lawsuit against Tesla. Gaitán claims that he bought a Tesla Model S but soon began to hear a noise. That noise was what he considers a factory defect because the car was poorly welded. The company refused to refund the money for the defect and offered to repair it, which he refused. In 2022 he won a first trial against the company, who appealed the sentence. This same year, the courts once again agreed with him.
The Tesla trial opens two paths for Gaitán. The first, to demonstrate the supposed truth that is hidden behind electric cars. To begin with, that of Tesla, which delivers cars with serious factory defects (always according to the mechanic), subsequently expanding the focus to all types of electric cars that only allow you to travel a few dozen kilometers if it is cold.
The second way is that of the media. Gaitán begins to receive calls from different media and begins to be seen on morning programs in which the focus is expanded. With the motor world as a perch, the mechanic expresses his opinion on the labor market with phrases like “people don’t want to work, there is no commitment.”
“I’m not racist but Yes, I get very angry with these things,” he emphasizes in a video in which he responds to an intervention on TVE. What Gaitán is referring to is the alleged case of Issam, a Moroccan worker who took the tests to work in the mechanic’s workshop and after a year trying to regularize his situation he disappeared overnight.
Little by little, Gaitán begins to gain impact and space on television networks, with debates mostly related to the future of the automobile and the electric car. In that climb, he ends up becoming a regular at Horizonte, directed by Iker Jiménez.
“My name is Ángel Gaitán and I am a fascist”
Since Horizonte was presented on the air, it has collected controversies of all kinds. The program has grown with a strong political charge, as has The Anthill or the morning matinees, with Ana Rosa Quintana and Susanna Griso as the main representatives.
Horizonte has been defended as a medium that “tells the truth” and as a speaker of hoaxes almost in equal measure. But it was with the DANA of Valencia when it focused all the spotlights. His coverage of the tragedy, including the dismissal of a collaborator for getting mud on himself before a live show, has been supported by Ángel Gaitán’s work at ground zero.
The mechanic soon arrived in Valencia to lend a hand as a volunteer. A job that has gone portraying without fail on social networks and which has not been without controversy either. From showing their own vans with aid that they have sent to the affected towns to opening a space to receive donations for Valencia. Some donations with which he has obtained 1.2 million euros that he has paralyzed because “they are going to fry me in taxes”, considering it a benefit for the company itself.
Along the way, we saw how to open a survey (using likes as a scale) to decide the town where they would go to help that night and unload their material or a “defense” of the gypsy people. The green glove is always the flag.
The Valencian tragedy has become the perfect breeding ground to elevate the influencers more reactionary. Especially those who cry out against politicians, those who define Spain as a “failed state” and those who shout that “only the people save the people.” Messages that the extreme right has tried to make profitable on social networks or that have been echoed by journalists such as Juan Manuel de Prada, who wrote a controversial column in the newspaper ABC.
Ángel Gaitán has picked up the gauntlet to change his public image and enter the field of populism. “My name is Ángel Gaitán and I am a fascist,” he defended the Spanish flag in hand on the set of Horizonte and, later, defended that the concept must be redefined. “I have realized that being a fascist is something similar to what I thought it was normal. Being Spanish, loving your country, doing things for others…”, Gaitán defended himself.
The speech is Gaitán’s latest turn to remain at the center of the social media debate and continue capturing space in the media. From mechanic to influencerof influencer to a tertullian and from a tertullian to the watchword of a speech that wants us to believe that Spain is a failed state.
Photo | Ángel Gaitán and National Police
In WorldOfSoftware | Spain should begin to raise awareness of a real “culture of emergency.” We have many examples to look at
