(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are once again trading public insults after the Tesla billionaire, the world’s richest man, said he will create a new political party.
Musk, who has been floating the idea of creating a third political party for weeks in the wake of his split with the president, reignited the push over the weekend after the passage of Trump’s sweeping tax cut and spending bill — which Musk railed against over its estimated impact adding trillions to the national debt.
“When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy,” Musk posted on X on Saturday. “Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.”
Trump on Sunday slammed the idea as “ridiculous.”
“I think starting a third party just adds to confusion,” Trump told reporters. “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.”
The president went further in a social media post, lashing out at Musk directly.
“I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails,’ essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks,” Trump wrote on his conservative social media platform, Truth Social. “He even wants to start a Third Political Party, despite the fact that they have never succeeded in the United States — The System seems not designed for them.”
Trump began his second term with a strong alliance with Musk, who was appointed a “special government employee” to oversee the Department of Government Efficiency, a newly-formed entity aimed at slashing government spending.
Musk left the administration in late May, and soon after Musk began to criticize Trump’s megabill. Musk said every lawmaker who supported the legislation should “hang their head in shame” and at one point issued a threat to Republicans supporting it, saying they “will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.”
Trump, in his social media post, explained their differences on electric vehicle mandates in the legislation and why he pulled the nomination of Musk’s associate to lead NASA.
Trump claimed that Musk told him he had “no problems” with him ending subsidies for EV purchases.
“No more EV Mandate. I have campaigned on this for two years and, quite honestly, when Elon gave me his total and unquestioned Endorsement, I asked him whether or not he knew that I was going to terminate the EV Mandate – It was in every speech I made, and in every conversation I had. He said he had no problems with that – I was very surprised!” Trump wrote.
The president went on to argue that he felt that it was in the best interest of the American public not to have Musk associate Jared Isaacman lead NASA due to their space industry connections.
“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. My Number One charge is to protect the American Public!” Trump wrote.
Musk unloaded on X in response to Trump’s lengthy post, mocking it by replying, “What’s Truth Social?” and slamming the president’s bill as a betrayal of DOGE’s purpose.
In one post replying to a screenshot of Trump’s Truth Social message, Musk agreed with a comment urging Vice President JD Vance to “make sure the President has his facts straight.”
Musk then responded, writing: “What the heck was the point of @DOGE if he’s just going to increase the debt by $5 trillion??”
Despite the heated back-and-forth and Musk’s repeated threats to form a new party, it’s unclear whether Musk has begun the formal process of creating his own party by filing paperwork with the Federal Election Commission.
Musk has said that his political party would target “just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts,” which he believes “would be enough to serve as the deciding vote on contentious laws.”
Musk compared it to how “Epaminondas shattered the myth of Spartan invincibility at Leuctra” by using “Extremely concentrated force at a precise location on the battlefield.”
In another post, Musk detailed that while backing a candidate for president in 2028 was “not out of the question,” the party’s focus “for the next 12 months is on the House and the Senate.”
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