Musk launches America Party, elicits mixed reactions

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has launched a new political party to the surprise of many Americans and consternation of some. “By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!” he posted on X on late Saturday, 5 July, and declared the result of the 24-hour poll he had conducted on the social media platform he owns.

The poll showed that 64 per cent of the respondents favoured the formation of a new political party.

“When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy. Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom. The way we are going to crack the uniparty system is by using a variant of how Epaminondas shattered the myth of Spartan invincibility at Leuctra: Extremely concentrated force at a precise location on the battlefield,” he explained in a subsequent post.

Epaminondas was a Greek statesman and military strategist in the 4th Century BC credited with breaking the military dominance of Sparta and disrupting the balance of power among Greek states.

Musk had threatened to form a new political party if President Trump’s spending Bill was passed by the Congress. He had also threatened that every single member of the Congress who voted for the Bill did not deserve winning another term. In the event, barring three Republican Senators in the US Senate and two Republican Members of the House of Representatives voted in favour of the Bill, while every Democratic Member in the two Houses voted against.

The MAGA (Make America Great Again) supporters of President Donals Trump reacted to the announcement with disappointment, dismay and even anger, believing that a third party will cut into Republican votes, divide Trump supporters and allow the Democratic Party to win the next election. However, some Republicans seemed to believe that the third party will destroy the Democratic Party by attracting opponents of Trump into what will be essentially another conservative and ‘rightist’ party.

The poll that Musk conducted on X, however, was immediately contested. Some even claimed to have asked the AI tool created for X, Grok, about the party affiliation of the respondents. The reply received from Grok was claimed to be the following: “X doesn't track or reveal voter nationalities in polls, so the exact number is unknown. However, with Elon's global audience (over 200M followers) and X's user base being only 17 per cent American, it's likely a significant portion—possibly over half—of the voters are non-American)."

Response from Republican Party supporters were varied. “A big mistake. A third political party would be Perot 2.0 and guarantee electing Democrats to the Oval Office and Congress. We have seen this show before. If you want to curb government spending, devote resources to elect more Republicans because the solution is not more Democrats in office,” responded one of them.

Ross Perot was a businessman and industrialist from Texas who ran for the US presidency as an independent candidate in 1992 and 1996, losing both times to Bill Clinton. Perot passed away in 2019.

Others were angry at Musk’s seeming betrayal of President Trump. “You turned out to be a real Trojan horse. There is nothing in you but a thirst for power and profit. Even a thousand lifetimes would not be enough to spend what you have now. Why want more? In history books, you will be described as a Judas who backstabbed the sitting president,” posted another.

Others vented their outrage by asking, “Does anyone remember the Leftist surge in attacks on Elon Musk and vandalisation of Tesla? Many large MAGA accounts and millions of other Trump supporters strongly, vocally expressed their support of Musk and Tesla - often stating they would buy stock and buy vehicles in support of Elon. Is he really mocking us now?”

Many more respondents appeared convinced that the venture would never take off. Musk responded to them by reposting a supporter who reminded people that sceptics who believed that Tesla, the electric car with a driverless model, would never succeed, that Musk could never start a space company, that SpaceX could never re-use a rocket, that SpaceX would never occupy Mars, that Musk cannot do politics or run a social media have already been proved wrong.

16 hours after Musk’s announcement of the America Party, Donald Trump was yet to dignify it with his response, choosing to ignore it. The US president, soaking in his moment under the Sun after getting the Congressional approval for his 860-page ‘Big and Beautiful Bill’, can afford to ignore the blip—at least for the time being.