Trump derides Musk's third political party plan as bound to fail

María Paula Mijares Torres, Bloomberg News on Jul 6, 2025

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President Donald Trump derided Elon Musk’s announcement that the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive officer is starting a new political party, saying the U.S. has “always been a two-party system.”

“Third parties have never worked, so he can have fun with it, but I think it’s ridiculous,” Trump told reporters on Sunday.

Musk said Saturday that a new “America Party” he has been threatening to launch “is formed,” a day after Trump signed a tax-cut and spending bill into law that Musk had denounced.

The world’s richest man didn’t provide details of the political party and there’s no immediate indication that he has filed official paperwork. He made the announcement on his X social network after posting the results of a poll on the platform that he said showed 65% of respondents in favor of creating an America Party.

Musk in May exited the administration in a dramatic blowup with Trump that ended his role heading the Department of Government Efficiency drive to cut federal spending.

Trump amplified his comments in a post on his Truth Social network later Sunday, saying he was “saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails’” over the past five weeks. Trump also touted his budget package that “unfortunately for Elon” eliminates the electric vehicle subsidy.

Musk has called Trump’s spending bill “insane,” criticized the package for giving “handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future,” and for raising the federal debt ceiling by $5 trillion.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested Sunday that Musk should stick to business rather than politics.

“I believe that the boards of directors at his various companies wanted him to come back and run those companies, which he is better at than anyone,” Bessent said in reply to a question on CNN’s State of the Union.

“So I imagine that those board of directors did not like this announcement yesterday and will be encouraging him to focus on his business activities, not his political activities,” Bessent said.