• Elon Musk said on X that he's forming a new political party amid a feud with President Donald Trump.

• He said it would be called the "America Party."

• Musk has publicly criticized Trump's spending bill, which the president signed on July 4.

Elon Musk declared on X the formation of a new political party amid his ongoing feud with President Donald Trump over the "Big Beautiful Bill."

"Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom," Musk wrote in an X post on Saturday.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO had said Friday on his social media platform that one way the new party could work is to focus on winning just a handful of Senate seats and House districts that could serve as the "deciding vote" on "contentious laws," given the "razor-thin legislative margins" in Congress.

Musk said in an X post on Sunday that while his party may consider "backing a candidate for president" down the line, its main focus "for the next 12 months is on the House and the Senate."

In response, Trump said on his Truth Social platform on Sunday that Musk had gone "completely off the rails."

"He even wants to start a Third Political Party, despite the fact that they have never succeeded in the United States," the president wrote at the start of a lengthy post. Trump went on to imply that Musk was angry because the spending bill eliminated incentives to buy electric cars.

When asked about the America Party, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that the boards of Musk's companies would rather he focus on business than on politics.

"Look, the principles of DOGE were very popular. I think, if you looked at the polling, Elon was not," Bessent told CNN.

"The polling for me was very positive a year ago, which is why Trump used me so much," Musk wrote in an X post on Sunday in response to Bessent's remarks.

Musk's popularity has taken a significant hit. He originally had a nearly 50% favorability rating in November, but it fell to 35% last month, per polls from Economist-YouGov.

Fellow billionaire Mark Cuban, meanwhile, appeared — not for the first time — to support the idea of a new party, replying to Musk's Saturday announcement with a series of fireworks and fire emojis.

More in Politics

'We have to': Trump sending weapons to Ukraine after expressing disappointment with Putin

USA TODAY

 

"This Is The Final Straw": Elon Musk Has Logged On, Seen The Epstein Memo, And Entered Full Chaos Mode

BuzzFeed

Howard Lutnick Steps in After Trump Appears Clueless on Latest Tariff Drama

The Daily Beast

"I work with @voterchoice. They will help you get on ballots. That is their mission," Cuban wrote in another post.

SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci, who briefly served as White House communications director under Trump in 2017, also reached out to Musk.

"I would like to meet to discuss. My DMs are open," he replied to Musk.

Musk's "America Party" announcement came after he conducted a July 4 poll, asking X users if they want "independence" from the two-party system. About 65% of the 1.25 million participants voted "Yes."

Musk, who was a staunch supporter of Trump's 2024 reelection bid, has been publicly critical of the president's "Big Beautiful Bill," a sweeping domestic policy bill that includes extensive tax cuts and could add more than $3 trillion to the national debt, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Musk has characterized the bill on X as a form of "debt slavery."

Just days after stepping away from his work at the White House DOGE Office, which was tasked with cutting spending and reducing the deficit, Musk in June called the legislation a "massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill."

Musk then proposed the idea of forming a new political party that represents the "80% in the middle."

Musk's repeated attacks on the bill led to a spectacular public fallout between him and the president. Trump even suggested that his office would look into possibly deporting Musk, a South African immigrant.

Musk's July 4 poll on X came the same day Trump signed the bill into law.

Musk and a White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Musk's back-and-forth regarding his involvement in political affairs has been followed by volatile times for the CEO of Tesla, his EV company.

Wall Street analysts, including Tesla bull Dan Ives, have said that Musk's politics could lead the company astray if the chief executive doesn't snap back into focus.

Earlier in June, Baird analysts downgraded the Tesla stock, noting that the Musk-Trump spat adds "uncertainty to TSLA's outlook.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk is undoubtedly brilliant. But a glaring blind spot is his inability to learn from other people’s mistakes.

Musk’s on-and-off feud with President Trump is back on, now that Trump has signed a huge tax-cut package Musk objected to. Musk threatened to form a new political party if Congress passed the bill and Trump signed it, a threat Trump and his fellow Republicans ignored. Musk objects to the bill because it will add at least $4 trillion to the already monstrous national debt and because it short-changes booming sectors such as green energy while boosting legacy industries such as fossil fuels.

The multibillionaire argues that Republicans and Democrats actually constitute a “uniparty” — depicted in one meme as a two-headed snake — that shares the common sin of perpetually pumping up the national debt. The “America Party” Musk plans to form would represent the “80% in the middle,” Musk says. Its policies would be centrist, and its prime mission would be getting the nation’s wayward finances back on sound footing.

Musk’s numbers are a bit off, but many voters will find his pitch is compelling. Self-described independents now represent 43% of the electorate, the highest portion in Gallup polling that dates to 1988. That reflects growing disgust with both established parties. Musk is generally right that both parties are guilty of financially reckless tax cuts and spending hikes, relying on ever more borrowed money. Fed-up independents and centrists are the coveted “swing voters” who now determine virtually every presidential election outcome, and many other state and local races as well.

Musk, however, will sooner or later learn what many other fed-up centrists know: Forming a meaningful third party in the United States is almost impossibly difficult. Terry Haines of research firm Pangaea Policy calls Musk’s third-party bid an “almost-certain failed political gambit that won’t move the political needle and looks like a cross between a petty vanity project and a pick up toys and go home temper tantrum.”

There’s a robust history of failed efforts to form centrist third parties in modern times. Ross Perot famously tried it in the 1990s, and while he created some populist buzz, he failed to win a single electoral vote in two presidential campaigns. Third-party efforts of the last three decades include the Reform, Libertarian, Green, and Constitution parties, along with No Labels and many lesser-knowns. If you don’t recognize any of those, well, see?

Musk is perhaps the world’s foremost startup expert, so maybe he thinks he will succeed where others have failed. Eh. Musk also thought his DOGE commission would be the first to meaningfully streamline government after dozens of prior attempts had failed. DOGE ran into the immovable object of Beltway political resistance and flopped within six months. Along the way, Musk’s bromance with Trump turned sour, with the two giant egos now engaged in a trolling war.

The American system of government simply leaves little turf for a third party to get much traction. As the Washington Post explained recently, the electoral college’s winner-take-all system tends to snuff out small vote-getting efforts, and there's no American tradition of multiparty coalition building, as there is in many parliamentary systems. There are also elaborate rules for getting onto the ballot in every state that heavily favor the two entrenched parties.

Musk is also personally unpopular, with a favorable rating of around 37% and an unfavorable rating of around 55%. Negative views of Musk spiked after he became Trump’s government hatchet man, and his net approval rating, at -18%, is about 11 points worse than Trump’s. The centrist ideology Musk is touting is probably a lot more popular than Musk himself.

Drop Rick Newman a note, take his weekly economy quiz, or sign up for his newsletter.

Even without a third party, however, Musk could wield outsized political influence — as he already did as Trump's BFF for a few heady months. The next step for Musk is to be the agenda-setter, rather than the rich donor funding somebody else's agenda. And there’s already a model for how to do this, driven by other business titans more patient and politically savvy than the impulsive Musk.