Musk declares new America Party ‘is formed’ after Trump’s bill passes
By Sam Kim
Elon Musk said a new political party he has been threatening to start up “is formed”, a day after US President Donald Trump signed a tax-cut and spending bill that the billionaire Tesla chief executive officer has denounced.
Musk made the announcement on his X social network after posting the results of a poll on the platform that he said showed 65 per cent of respondents in favour of creating an America Party.
Elon Musk had previously threatened to launch a political party the day after “this insane spending bill passes”.Credit: Getty Images
“You want a new political party and you shall have it!” he said on Saturday (Sunday AEST). “Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.”
Musk, the world’s richest man, didn’t provide details. He floated the idea as Congress prepared to pass Trump’s budget package, which will end a popular $US7500 ($11,446) consumer tax credit for electric vehicle purchases this year.
That followed Musk’s exit from the administration in an incendiary spat with Trump that ended his role heading the Department of Government Efficiency drive to cut federal spending.
Weeks after the public blow-up with Trump, Musk began to ramp up criticism of the tax and spending bill through a series of posts on X, after the Senate version sped up the end of EV tax credits.
The posts came a day after Musk lashed out at the tax bill, describing it as a budget-busting “disgusting abomination”, as Republican hawks stepped up criticism of the massive fiscal package.
He took aim at Congress members who supported the bill, threatening to launch a new political party and vowing to boost his political spending to unseat lawmakers who voted for the bill during the next round of US elections.
“If this insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day,” Musk said on X at the time. He also criticised 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 $US5 trillion.
Trump hasn’t publicly responded to Musk’s comments on the bill, but the White House put out a statement on Wednesday, Washington time, saying the “Big Beautiful Bill” legislation “unleashes an era of unprecedented economic growth”.
During Musk’s tumultuous run in Washington, his private companies – SpaceX, brain implant venture Neuralink and AI start-up XAI – have benefited from new funding, while the value of debt taken on when he converted Twitter into privately owned X has soared.
But it was Tesla, Musk’s only publicly traded company and a big source of his wealth, that bore the brunt of the public anger against him and his policies. Tesla’s shares are down about 20 per cent for the year, and the EV maker’s sales have plummeted.
In terms of Musk’s personal wealth, the alliance with Trump has so far cost him $US113 billion ($175 billion), with his fortune tumbling by a quarter since January 17, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Bloomberg
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