Just weeks after dramatically falling out with US President Donald Trump, the world’s richest man announced he is launching a new political party. According to Elon Musk via X, he set up the America Party, billing it as a challenge to the Republicans and Democrats.
“You want a new political party and you shall have it!” Mr Musk said earlier this month. “When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy. Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.”
Mr Musk hopes that the new organisation will have the power to influence the future of US politics, having suggested running candidates for two or three Senate seats and as much as 10 House districts. He believes that capturing a small number of seats “would be enough to serve as the deciding vote on contentious laws”. However, serious doubts have been raised about whether the new America Party will change US politics like Mr Musk believes it will.
With the entire concept of the America Party seemingly coming together in just a few weeks, it’s no surprise that Mr Musk has encountered several teething problems. For example, Americanparty.com is already registered to someone else, who is now said to be trying to sell the domain for $6.9 million (£5.1 million). Meanwhile, on X, which the world’s richest man owns, @AmericaParty was already taken, so the new party was forced to opt for @AmericaPartyX.
Despite there appearing to be consistently strong support for an alternative to the Republican and Democrat parties, according to Bernard Tamas, professor of political science at Valdosta State University and author of The Demise and Rebirth of American Third Parties reported in The Guardian, he sees “no evidence that you’re going to get another party winning seats in Congress and actually being able to have an impact in the government”.
“It’s not just the money that Democrats and Republicans have. They have all the resources. They have the money. They have 150 years of structure. They have all the professional politicians, and they have all the consultants, and they have all the Madison Avenue ad companies working for them.”
The US has a tight two-party system in which all, or almost all, elected officials belong to either the Republican or Democratic parties. In such systems, minor or third parties rarely win any seats in the legislature, certainly nothing like the success that Mr Musk envisages. In the election last year, candidates from the Libertarian Party, the Green Party and the People’s Party all tried in vain to stop Mr Trump or his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, from winning.
“In terms of the parties that really had a big impact, they didn’t win seats,” Prof Tamas added. “The job of third parties is disruption. It’s to sting like a bee. It’s to cause pain.”
The professor explained that as the Republican party moves further to the right of the political spectrum with its MAGA direction, with no one in the party in Congress willing to challenge Mr Trump, there is the “perfect opening” for a third party. However, “you’re not going to replace them,” he added. “What you do is you attack them for this. You’re trying to pull them back towards the center.
“This is how the third parties have always succeeded. The idea is you cause them pain, and what they do, if it works, is they shift back towards something that reflects more what the public wants, or deals with the issues that the third party is bringing up.”
It is also unclear what the party will stand for beyond opposing the Republican party’s growing national debt. Mr Musk has so far refused to elaborate on the “contentious laws” his politicians would challenge and there is no party platform or manifesto.
Finally, Mr Musk is said to have been approaching eccentric political advisers like Curtis Yarvin, a rightwing tech blogger who has argued American democracy has run its course and the country should instead be run by a dictator-esque CEO. There is also the issue that the X and SpaceX owner is becoming increasingly unpopular. A poll last week found that 60% of Americans have an unfavourable view of Mr Musk. Finally, Mr Musk, who was born outside of the US, is ineligible to run for the US presidency and has not said who will lead the party.