Republicans Mock Elon Musk’s New ‘America Party’ After Billionaire Further Distances Himself From Trump Over Deficit Spending

Elon Musk’s new “America Party” — launched in the wake of President Trump signing his One Big Beautiful Bill Act — is receiving nothing but scorn from Mr. Musk’s old fans in the Trump camp. The world’s richest man has only said so far that he plans to support members of Congress who voted against the legislation because he was concerned about deficit spending. Mr. Musk bashed the big, beautiful bill for weeks as it was making its way through Congress. Eventually, his criticisms of the bill escalated into a personal battle with Mr. Trump, whom Mr. Musk accused of being included in the so-called “Epstein files.” Ultimately, only two House Republicans and three Senate Republicans voted against the bill. On Friday, he set up a poll on his X account, asking users if they wanted to see a third party in American politics to win “independence from the two-party … system.” “When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste and graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy,” Mr. Musk wrote after the poll was finished. “Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.”It appears Mr. Musk has already filed with the Federal Election Commission to set up his new party. According to a form listed on the FEC’s website, a new “America Party” was created on Sunday. The treasurer of that group is listed as Vaibhav Taneja — which is also the name of Tesla’s chief financial officer. The main contact email for the party is Elon_Musk.AMEP@proton.me. In one post on July 4, Mr. Musk said that he believes he could get a few America Party members elected to Congress in the coming years. “One way to execute on this would be to laser-focus on just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts,” he wrote on Friday. “Given the razor-thin legislative margins, that would be enough to serve as the deciding vote on contentious laws, ensuring that they serve the true will of the people,” he said. Republicans are laughing off the entire effort, saying that Mr. Musk does not understand the current populist moment and what the Trump movement really represents. On Sunday, Secretary Bessent said Mr. Musk’s problem is that he just isn’t popular, and that his business partners will likely try to steer him away from this effort. “The principles of DOGE were very popular. I think if you looked at the polling, Elon was not. So, I believe that the board of directors at his various companies wanted him to come back and run those companies, which he is better at than anyone,” Mr. Bessent said in an interview with CNN on Sunday. “I imagine that those boards of directors did not like this announcement yesterday, and will be encouraging him to focus on his business activists — not his political activities. Steve Bannon offered his own comments about Mr. Musk’s America Party on the social media platform GETTR. He simply called it a “sad attempt” at “intimidation.”A popular conservative YouTuber, Vice Dao, wrote on X that this is likely just another plaything for Mr. Musk, who enjoys being in the spotlight to talk about politics. Mr. Musk famously went on his own kind of whistlestop tour last year on behalf of Mr. Trump, doing rallies and answering questions from crowds about what he thought about American politics, as if he was the candidate. “In June, Elon admitted that creating a third party would hand Democrats a supermajority and end poorly for him. He cancelled it during his truce with Trump, then restarted it,” Mr. Dao wrote on X on Sunday. “Does anyone believe the ‘America Party’ will even last until 2026? Unserious.”One former lawmaker who is coming to Mr. Musk’s defense, however, is Congressman Justin Amash, who represented Michigan in the House for a decade as a Republican, independent, and finally as a Libertarian for his last year in office. He said the “duopoly” needs to be disrupted. “The worst aspects of the Republican Party and Democratic Party derive from the fact they face no serious competition,” Mr. Amash wrote on X. “They won’t change as long as each can contend it is marginally better than the sole alternative.”

Republicans Mock Elon Musk’s New ‘America Party’ After Billionaire Further Distances Himself From Trump Over Deficit Spending

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