From Supporting Trump to Building a Third Party: The Difficult Political Journey of "Madman" Musk

Jessy, Jinse Finance

On July 5, local time, Musk announced the establishment of a new political party independent of the Republican and Democratic parties - the "American Party."

In recent days, Musk has posted multiple tweets criticizing the "Big and Beautiful" bill as "extremely crazy and destructive," and stated that if the bill passes, he will immediately establish a new political party.

Trump himself also responded by saying that Musk's dissatisfaction is due to the fact that the bill eliminated tax credits for electric vehicle consumers. On July 1, Trump also stated that he might consider deporting Musk.

Trump and Musk formed an alliance during last year's presidential campaign, but in May of this year, they completely "fell out." Originally, Musk used his vast amounts of money and time to support Trump in becoming president, and after Trump took office, he effectively led the U.S. government's efficiency department, primarily aiming to cut government spending and create a more streamlined and efficient government.

He relied on supporting Trump for president to realize his political ideals. But ultimately, due to conflicts of interest, power struggles, and ideological differences, he completely broke with Trump. Now announcing the establishment of a third party is essentially an attempt to realize his political ideals once again after understanding that the current government cannot support him in achieving those ideals. After a businessman has achieved great success in the business world, he seeks to pursue the realization of his personal will and technological vision in politics; will he succeed this time?

Why have we come to this step of founding the Party?

Initially, the cooperation between Musk and Trump was essentially an exchange of interests.

Musk needs to leverage state power to promote his political ideals of cutting government spending and reshaping government efficiency. At the same time, in his view, Trump, being a businessman, would support the development of the economy and technology. Trump, on the other hand, needs Musk's money, resources, and his identity as a tech mogul to win over the youth and the votes of the new tech elites. It has been proven that with Musk's leading support and the promises made by Trump during the campaign, most of the tech moguls in Silicon Valley who adhere to "technological accelerationism" did indeed cast their votes for Trump.

After Trump took office, Musk indeed got the opportunity to start realizing his political ideals, as he was appointed the de facto head of the "Office of Government Efficiency," although his public identity has always been that of a special advisor. The Office of Government Efficiency promotes political reform to "streamline government" from within: significantly cutting redundant budgets, restructuring administrative frameworks, and replacing inefficient manpower with technology.

The bold reforms of the Government Efficiency Department have also faced resistance within the federal government, public controversy, and even multiple lawsuits. On May 30, Musk announced his withdrawal from the Government Efficiency Department.

After a brief honeymoon period, Trump and Musk have experienced a concentrated outbreak of conflicts.

The "Big and Beautiful" bill is the high point of this conflict, as it eliminates tax credits for new energy vehicles. Musk believes this is an "elite punishment" against emerging industries like Tesla, a backlash that shifts the budget back towards traditional energy and military industrial groups. He has repeatedly posted on X in opposition, calling it a "distorted manifestation of corrupt politics."

Trump directly accused Musk of being "greedy and ungrateful," claiming that Musk was acting in his own self-interest, and openly stated that "perhaps we should consider deporting him."

At this point, the political alliance between the tech elite Elon Musk and the populist leader Donald Trump has completely shattered.

From policy differences to mismatches at the personal level, this tech tycoon who wants to change the world realizes that the political reforms he desires cannot be achieved through the existing system, nor can they rely on Trump.

Establishing an independent third party seems to be the only way for him to break free from dependency and take control of the steering wheel independently.

A political ideal of technological accelerationism

Musk has never been a typical businessman. He builds rockets, makes cars, develops brain-machine interfaces, and even acquires social platforms. These actions seem crazy and scattered. In fact, they revolve around a core idea: technology drives the future, the government shrinks, and humanity becomes free.

This is also his political background. On multiple occasions, Musk has expressed distrust of "big government": he despises complicated regulations, bloated budgets, and inefficient administrative systems. He believes that technology can fully take on most governance functions, such as AI layoffs, automated process management, and blockchain transparent auditing... These tools can not only reduce costs but also lower the "risk of corruption in human nature."

His ideal is a "technological rational governance"—the government operates like an efficient company, the bureaucracy is streamlined, citizens have more autonomy, and all of this should be achieved through the calculations of technology and engineers.

In his view, the existing two-party system is a compromise machine that always serves the interests of interest groups and cannot truly "upgrade the system." He even believes that the opposition between the two parties essentially conceals the old order they jointly protect.

Therefore, Musk's formation of a political party is not to become another political figure. Instead, it is to embed the idea of governing through technology into the national operational system through his own party, and even one day, to eliminate the very form of "political parties" itself.

Currently, Musk indeed has many resources that allow him to initiate a third party, such as his control over the social media platform X, which enables him to guide public opinion and stir emotions without the need for media endorsement. Additionally, he has a large personal following, consisting of Tesla users, cryptocurrency holders, and young technology enthusiasts. Furthermore, he is the richest person, possessing a significant amount of money as well as technological expertise.

However, establishing a new political party is quite different from building a technological empire. The construction of a technological business empire and the establishment of an influential political party require different abilities. Businesspeople build empires following the logic of capital, while politicians mobilize based on identity recognition.

Elon Musk can leverage a star product to generate billions in revenue commercially, but his public image is unstable. He is both a genius engineer and an emotional "madman" on social media; he supports free speech while also banning journalists' accounts; his "political ideology" lacks coherence and is even mixed with obvious personal emotions. All of this chaos and madness undermines his credibility among mainstream middle-class and neutral voters.

How far is Musk from founding a party?

Moreover, the political system in the United States is extremely unfriendly to third parties, with state ballot systems, the Electoral College mechanism for presidential elections, as well as party subsidies and media resource allocation, all heavily favoring the two major parties.

It can be said that the current election system in the United States greatly limits the rise of third parties. American election expert Brett Kappel stated that the laws in all states favor the two major parties, Republican and Democratic, and create obstacles to the emergence of third parties as much as possible.

Moreover, historical data shows that there are very few successful cases of third parties in the United States. In the history of American politics, the most successful third party candidate was Ross Perot, the independent presidential candidate in 1992, who received 18.9% of the popular vote. However, even such a vote share could not be converted into electoral votes. In the 2016 election, Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party received 3.27% of the popular vote, setting the party's historical best result. In 2020, Jill Stein of the Green Party also received only about 1.1% of the popular vote.

The Washington Post also pointed out that any new party, such as the "American Party," that seeks to shake up the long-standing political structure in the United States will face numerous obstacles.

Currently, Musk has not officially released a complete party platform, but according to Musk's statements, the "American Party" plans to become an active political force in next year's midterm elections—"focusing on just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts."

The election expert Kapoor stated that although Musk may push a few candidates onto the ballot in certain states, establishing an entirely new national party could take years and is certainly not possible to complete before the 2026 midterm elections.