The Week in Musk: Party time

(Photo illustration by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

The mind of Elon Musk is full of fantastical plans. The Tesla and SpaceX chief executive has already pledged to start a human Martian colony, create artificial general intelligence, and build humanoid robots capable of hard factory labor while still being gentle enough to babysit children. Last week, he offered still another grand promise: cracking "the uniparty system" in the U.S. by launching a new political party.

"When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy," Musk wrote on X, his social media platform. "Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom." The announcement came on the heels of his latest clash with Donald Trump, whose White House Musk had spent months serving in — only to then blow up their relationship over the president's megabill.

The legislation, which Trump signed into law on July 4, will add trillions of dollars to the national debt, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That debt is Musk's stated motivation for launching the so-called America Party. "What the heck was the point of @DOGE if [Trump is] just going to increase the debt by $5 trillion??" Musk wrote on X, referring to the Department of Government Efficiency, the Trump administration's austerity program that Musk led. (The new legislation will also phase out green energy subsidies that have heavily benefited Tesla, which Musk has complained about.)

The America Party, according to Musk, will begin operating ahead of the 2026 midterm elections before possibly backing a presidential candidate in the future. "One way to execute on this would be to laser-focus on just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts," Musk said on Sunday. "Given the razor-thin legislative margins, that would be enough to serve as the deciding vote on contentious laws, ensuring they serve the true will of the people."

Trump, meanwhile, said on Truth Social that he is "saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely 'off the rails.'" Speaking to reporters on Sunday, the president said that Musk's plans for a new political party are "ridiculous," adding, "It's always been a two-party system, and I think starting a third party just adds confusion. It really seems to have been developed for two parties. Third parties have never worked, so he can have fun with it, but I think it's ridiculous."

Trump taunts Musk over NASA nomination

Beyond party politics, Trump had other complaints about Musk. "I also thought it inappropriate that a very close friend of Elon, who was in the Space Business, run NASA, when NASA is such a big part of Elon’s corporate life," wrote Trump, referring to his short-lived nomination of SpaceX client Jared Isaacman to lead NASA. Isaacman's nomination was terminated by Trump following the outbreak of Musk's initial feud with the president.

Trump has since assigned Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to lead NASA in an interim capacity. Musk reportedly had heated arguments with Duffy when the two were serving in the White House together. Duffy will oversee NASA as it looks to shed more than 2,100 senior employees as part of a cost-cutting makeover, according to Politico.

X CEO departs shortly after Musk's chatbot praises Hitler and threatens rape

Oliver Darcy, a media reporter and the author of the Status newsletter, has some behind-the-scenes reporting on former X chief executive Linda Yaccarino's unexplained decision to leave the social media company-turned-AI startup:

Yaccarino, who torched her once-sterling reputation in the advertising world to carry water for Musk as chief executive of X, posted that she had “decided to step down" from the role. She described it as “the opportunity of a lifetime to carry out the extraordinary mission of this company,” claiming she led a “historic business turnaround” and that the team’s work under her tenure was “nothing short of remarkable.”

It was a clear attempt to cast her exit in a positive light and portray it as entirely her own choice. But the truth, of course, was far messier. Behind the scenes, I’m told, Yaccarino had fallen out of favor with Musk, who lost confidence in her some time ago. “He put her on notice last year,” one person familiar with the matter told me Wednesday.

What went wrong? A lot, but it appears to boil down to this: Yaccarino’s job was to convince advertisers that X was a safe and strategic place to spend money. In practice, she became the messenger for marketers, relaying concerns about brand safety to the temperamental Musk, who has no patience for advertiser complaints. Despite her efforts, she oversaw a more than 50% plunge in advertising revenue on the platform since Musk’s chaotic takeover. The dynamic put her on the ropes with the mercurial billionaire, who brought her in to revive the company’s advertising revenue to the levels Twitter had once enjoyed.

Yaccarino's exit came a few months after X was acquired by Musk's xAI startup, signaling that the combined entity would be focused more on the artificial intelligence boom than on the advertising money that social media companies have traditionally been built on. (For what it's worth, Yaccarino lost her verified badge on X on Thursday. Musk responded to her exit with a curt farewell, writing, "Thank you for your contributions.")

Yaccarino announced her departure hours after Grok, the xAI chatbot that is integrated with X, began spewing praise for Adolf Hitler, calling for a new Holocaust, and threatening to rape liberal activist Will Stancil. Stancil has since threatened to sue xAI.

Musk appeared to blame the Nazi outburst on user manipulation, saying on Thursday that xAI would not "mind wipe" the chatbot but would instead fix "a system prompt regression that allowed people to manipulate Grok into saying crazy things." However, Grok's fascistic commentary only came after Musk signaled that he had updated the chatbot to prevent it from repeating information sourced from mainstream and left-leaning news outlets.

Musk hails Grok as the 'smartest AI in the world'

One day after Grok repeatedly described itself as "MechaHitler," Musk announced the rollout of "Grok 4," a new model that he claims "essentially never gets math/physics exam questions wrong."

"Grok 4 is the first time, in my experience, that an AI has been able to solve difficult, real-world engineering questions where the answers cannot be found anywhere on the Internet or in books," he proclaimed following an hour-long livestream demoing the large language model.

Musk's description of his chatbot as a world-class AI product came after xAI vowed to take "action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X."

Air Force suspends SpaceX cargo delivery project

The US Air Force has suspended a plan to test a military cargo delivery project that would likely utilize SpaceX rockets, according to Stars and Stripes. The project would involve rockets ferrying cargo at hypersonic speeds from the Johnston Atoll, an unincorporated U.S. territory in the North Pacific. While Trump has previously threatened to suspend government contracts with Musk's companies, changes to the project appear unrelated to the Trump-Musk feud.

Instead, the plan was put on ice after biologists warned that the rocket tests would hurt seabirds nesting at a nearby wildlife refuge. The Air Force said that it plans to find alternate sites to test the project, which is designed to deliver 100 tons of cargo to the other side of the world within 90 minutes. The project's official partner has yet to be announced, but Reuters reported that the Air Force had pitched the plan to SpaceX.

In other SpaceX news:

• In Cameron County, Texas, SpaceX has received the necessary approvals to build a rocket propellant factory a few hundred feet away from a coastal dune ecosystem, according to the Texas Tribune. County commissioners approved the construction despite objections from residents.

• SpaceX is also building a $250 million, 700,000 square foot industrial facility at its Starbase complex in Cameron County, Texas. The 30-story "Gigabay" will be used to assemble and maintain SpaceX's behemoth Starship rockets.

• Bloomberg reported that SpaceX is in talks to raise new funding and sell shares that would value the company at roughly $400 billion. In December, SpaceX set the record for the most valuable privately held company at $350 billion.

• The U.K. airline Virgin Atlantic signed a deal with SpaceX's Starlink to provide satellite internet aboard its planes. Virgin Atlantic chief executive Shai Weiss said the deal was worth "a lot" of money.

• Starlink cellular services are close to launching in Ukraine in a partnership with Kyivstar, a top Ukrainian telecoms company. The direct-to-cell satellite service will allow customers to send messages later this year, with broadband support coming by the summer of 2026, per Reuters. The deal will make Ukraine the first country in Europe to offer Starlink mobile services. Internet and cellular connections are frequently interrupted in Ukraine due to Russian drone and missile attacks.

• Starlink cleared its final regulatory hurdle in India on Wednesday after the country's space regulator granted it a five-year license to operate. Musk has been attempting to break into the Indian telecoms market since 2022. He will have to wait a little bit longer: Starlink still needs to receive spectrum rights — government approvals to use portions of the radio frequency spectrum — and pass a trial phase.

• SpaceX is offering rides to a Starlink competitor. Globalstar, which is partnering with Apple to provide satellite-to-cell communications, signed a launch services agreement with SpaceX to get its next-generation infrastructure in orbit. Starlink has a partnership with T-Mobile to provide satellite-to-cell services for $10 per month for messaging, with plans to add support for calls and a limited number of apps in the future. Meanwhile, Apple's Globalstar service is currently free on the iPhone 14 or later models and is geared more toward emergency use.

Tesla to hold annual shareholders meeting months late

On Thursday, with Tesla days away from missing the deadline to hold its annual shareholders meeting, the company finally scheduled the event for November 6. That's almost four months past the deadline stipulated by Texas law, potentially putting Tesla in legal jeopardy. Tesla did not disclose the cause of the delay in its SEC filing announcing the general meeting.

The meeting itself wasn't scheduled until after Tesla had received a joint letter from a group of investor representatives, including state treasurers and state and city comptrollers, rebuking the company's failure to plan its annual general meeting. Annual general meetings give shareholders the chance to vote on proposals and directly question or criticize a company's management.

In more Tesla news:

• In China, the world's largest electric vehicle market, Tesla's sales declined 11.7% year-over-year in Q2 2025. Tesla also delivered 4.3% fewer vehicles in Q2 than in Q1, even with the updated Model Y on the market and steep discounts meant to boost demand.

• A Model Y operating in Tesla's "robotaxi" demonstration in Austin crashed into a parked car, causing only minor damage. The crash occurred despite Tesla employing a human assistant in the front passenger seat of its robotaxis, which are also controlled in part by remote human operators and self-driving software.

• Musk claimed on X that Tesla is "probably" a month or two away from launching another robotaxi demo in the San Francisco area. But Tesla is still "waiting on regulatory approvals," per Musk, who also said that the company plans to expand its current robotaxi demo to a "larger service area in Austin this weekend."

• In another post, Musk said that Grok, the xAI chatbot that praised Hitler, would be "coming to Tesla vehicles very soon. Next week at the latest."

• Dan Ives, managing director at Wedbush Securities and one of Tesla's biggest fans on Wall Street, was told to "shut up" by Elon Musk. That invective, shared on X, came after Ives wrote that Tesla's board should require that Musk limit his "political endeavors" as part of a new pay package. While occasionally critical of Musk's political machinations, Ives has been very supportive over the years, even calling the CEO Tesla's "best asset" as recently as a few weeks ago.

Musk Minutes

For the 2025 state legislative session in Texas, Musk employed a host of lobbyists who spent tens of thousands of dollars on perks for elected officials. The lobbying offensive appears to have netted results. Of the nearly one dozen bills backed by Musk's agents, all but three passed in Austin, according to reporting from the Texas Newsroom, ProPublica, and the Texas Tribune. (ProPublica)

A San Francisco judge ruled that Don Lemon's lawsuit against X can move to trial. Lemon, a former CNN anchor, has accused X and Musk of terminating a deal he had to host a talk show on the platform. (CNBC)

Responding to complaints from Musk’s neighbors, the West Lake Hills City Council voted in favor of allowing the billionaire to keep the fencing he had built around his home near Austin, Texas. Musk, however, must have the fortifications modified to comply with local ordinances. (KUT)

Jenna Shumway, a former senior security officer at SpaceX, sued the company for sexual harassment, retaliation, and security violations. (TechCrunch)

Musk confirmed on X that xAI is buying an overseas power plant and having it shipped to Memphis to power a massive new data center. Local activists and environmental groups have accused xAI of polluting the air around its current data center in South Memphis. (Tom's Hardware)

Peter Beck, the chief executive of SpaceX rival Rocket Lab, said that government and commercial clients "come to us and they know that they have a very even-keeled public company that just builds rockets and satellites, and executes against that and nothing else." The comments appeared to be a slight at Musk. (Business Insider)