Musk's plan for a new political party is not rocket science. It's harder.
Following his public split with Donald Trump over a deficit-ballooning tax and spending bill, Elon Musk announced that he will form a new political party. The so-called America Party, in Musk's telling, will challenge the incumbent Republicans who failed to produce the kind of spending cuts he had envisaged when he spent nearly $300 million last year to help elect Trump. "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," the Tesla and SpaceX chief wrote last week on X, his social media platform.
Musk says his party will run in a small number of pivotal congressional races in the 2026 midterms, targeting "2–3 Senate seats and 8–10 House districts" to accumulate swing‑vote leverage on Capitol Hill.
However, according to Richard L. Hasen, the Gary T. Schwartz Endowed Chair in Law at UCLA, launching a remotely viable third-party would require a massive undertaking.
"Creating a new political party on a national scale is a daunting task," said Hasen, who is also the director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at the UCLA School of Law. "Ballot access is a state-by-state matter, and it requires collecting signatures and running candidates in elections in order to establish a party line. Because the details differ from state to state, it means hiring lawyers in each state to handle it."
Gathering enough voter signatures for a third-party candidate to qualify to run in a given state or congressional district is costly and time-consuming. For example, for a political party to qualify in California, it must have 0.33% of voters registered under its banner or collect petition signatures equal to 10% of the total votes cast in the latest gubernatorial election.
The onerous laws that control ballot access favor the Republican or Democratic parties and are often intended to restrict third parties from competing.
"The Democratic Party and the Republican Party have a duopoly lock on ballot access," said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, an election law professor at Stetson University. "In most states this is done through state statutes. The two legacy parties have near-permanent lines on the ballot. Thus, when you run as an R or D, there is already a place on the ballot for you. But if you run third party, then there are extra steps which have 50 different rules in the 50 states."
With an estimated net worth of $404 billion, Musk is better positioned than almost anyone to cover the exuberant costs associated with forming a new political party. But how much Musk can spend on the America Party directly would be limited. "While [the landmark Supreme Court case Buckley v. Valeo] allows Musk to spend infinite money supporting his own candidacy, the same is not true of a political party," said Torres-Spelliscy. "There are hard money limits on how much an individual can give to a political party."
It's unclear how many Americans would be willing to support a political party started by Musk.
Aligning himself so closely with Trump made Musk deeply unpopular among Democratic-leaning voters. His subsequent divorce from Trump appears to have hurt his standing with conservative voters. A Quinnipiac poll conducted as his first clash with Trump was unfolding found that Musk's favorability among Republicans had declined by 16 points between March and early June.
According to a CNN analysis, just 4% of voters hold both a favorable opinion of Musk and an unfavorable opinion of the Republican Party, which suggests that the potential constituency for a Musk-led alternative conservative party is limited. That could be problematic for Musk.
"The idea that a new party headed by a political neophyte who is controversial and seeking to run in the middle could capture even one Senate or House seat in the first election in which they participate seems quite naïve to me," said Hasen. "It seems like it could only happen if the party attracts someone who already has great name recognition and popularity, such as a celebrity or seasoned politician leaving one of the major parties."
Political parties are typically based around a set of issues, no matter how vague. But Musk has only indicated that the America Party will focus on reducing the federal debt and cutting spending, including potentially cuts to popular programs like Social Security, which Musk views as "the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time."
While there is no evidence to suggest that the America Party would appeal to the "80% in the middle" of the political spectrum, as Musk has put it, it has drawn interest from the Libertarian Party, the largest third party in the U.S. But rather than direct support for the America Party, the chairman of the Libertarian National Convention says he hopes Musk will use his riches to boost the Libertarian Party.
Musk, meanwhile, has sought out the far-right, pro-authoritarian blogger Curtis Yarvin for insights on how to develop his party, according to the New York Times. A favorite political thinker of right-wing tech barons, Yarvin's writing has inspired Palantir founder Peter Thiel, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, and Vice President J.D. Vance. It's unclear how well Musk's talk with Yarvin about the America Party went. Musk unfollowed Yarvin on his social media platform shortly after the Times reported that the two had spoken.
Other figures receptive to a Musk-led political movement include billionaire Mark Cuban and former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who founded his own political party in 2022.
Following the unmatched success of the Cybertruck, we announce "The America Party"!
Thank you keep it coming! Yarvin needs to be unmasked for the clown that he is. Since muskrat isnt a scientist and a failed human, I doubt his third party will amount to much of anything.