Billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk waded deeper into American politics on Saturday, when he announced he would be starting a new political party.
The vow comes amid his ongoing feud with U.S. President Donald Trump.
A day after asking his followers on his X platform whether a new U.S. political party should be created, Musk declared in a post on Saturday that, “Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.”
“By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!” he wrote.
The announcement from Musk comes after Trump signed his self-styled “big, beautiful” tax-cut and spending bill into law on Friday, which Musk fiercely opposed.
There are multiple filings with the U.S. Federal Election Commission mentioning names associated with Musk, as well as the one he has said he would use for his party. In response to an X user to posted one of those filings on Monday, Musk has said the listing was “false” and has been reported to the FEC.
But none appeared to be authentic, that report said, listing contacts for the organization as email addresses such as ” wentsnowboarding@yahoo.com ″ or untraceable Protonmail addresses.
Musk, who became the world’s richest man thanks to his Tesla car company and his SpaceX satellite firm, spent hundreds of millions on Trump’s re-election campaign and briefly led the controversial Department of Government Efficiency aimed at slashing government spending.
Melissa Haussman, professor emeritus of political science at Carleton University, said Musk’s feud with Trump appears to be the immediate spark for his plunge into party politics.
“The immediate circumstances are that he and Trump are on the out,” she said.
“This is a way to, I think, poke the president.”
Haussman says Musk’s aim appears to be ostensibly to punish Republicans who voted for Trump’s big spending bill.
“It’s not clear that what Musk is proposing right now, he really needs a new party to do. Because all I’ve seen is that he wants to target a few holdouts in the Senate and the house,” she said.
What are Musk's goals?
Musk said previously that he would start a new political party and spend money to unseat lawmakers who supported the bill.
Get breaking National news
Musk had called the tax breaks and spending cuts package a “disgusting abomination,” warning it would increase the federal deficit, among other critiques.
“The Republican Party has a clean sweep of the executive, legislative and judicial branches and STILL had the nerve to massively increase the size of government, expanding the national debt by a record FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS,” Musk said Sunday on X.
Trump earlier this week threatened to cut off the billions of dollars in subsidies that Musk’s companies receive from the federal government.
Republicans have expressed concern that Musk’s on-again, off-again feud with Trump could hurt their chances to protect their majority in the 2026 midterm congressional elections.
How soon could the party operate?
Haussman said even if Musk’s party has a small impact, it doesn’t take much to tilt the results of American elections either way given how tight recent results have been.
“He could have a small impact, but the small impact is all it takes for 2026 in terms of making the already razor-thin margins even more razor-thin,” she said.
However, she said getting a political party up and running by 2026 would be a “huge painstaking process.”
“You can’t just sort of wave a wand and say, here’s my new party.”
Even political parties need to operate within the federal structure of the United States, she said.
“You’ve got the state parties, which are part of the national party. You’re going to have to get a certain number of signatures and certifications and work with the secretaries of state in these various states to form the (state) parties,” she said.” He can’t just form a national party overnight.”
While Musk has demonstrated an appetite for political involvement with his America PAC (political action committee), which aided Donald Trump’s 2024 bid for the White House, he has also been met with some failures.
Most notably, his preferred candidate lost the race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court earlier this year.
What happens now?
Musk’s Tesla investors have also expressed their concerns.
The first sign of investor dissatisfaction with Musk’s announcement followed later on Saturday.
Investment firm Azoria Partners will postpone the listing of a Tesla exchange-traded fund, Azoria CEO James Fishback said in a post on X.
Fishback is asking Tesla’s board to clarify Musk’s political ambitions and said the new party undermines the confidence shareholders had that he would be focusing more on the company after leaving government service in May.
But if Musk goes through with this and breaks the 160-year-old two-party system dominated by the Republicans and the Democrats, Haussman said we have a fair idea of where his political leanings may lie.
“Traditionally, he’s been a Republican, but on the other hand, President Trump donated to Democrats before he was elected,” she said.
Haussman added, “Assuming his public statements are what we can take (into account), he’s really mad at this so-called big, beautiful bill and the deficit. It looks like he wants to go from the more fiscally conservative, perhaps libertarian, end.”
–with files from Reuters
- Over $1.7 million raised for 88-year-old army vet working in grocery store
- What to know about Venezuela, Maduro and Trump’s possible military plans
- Protesters arrested after smearing custard and crumble on Crown Jewels case at Tower of London
- Frank Gehry, renowned Canadian-born architect, dies at age 96
Comments