'It'll Backfire': Republicans Urge Elon Musk Not To Form Third Political Party

WASHINGTON ― A third party backed by billionaire Elon Musk will divide conservatives to the detriment of the Republican Party and help elect Democrats, Republican senators who are allied with President Donald Trump warned this week.

“It’s just going to split conservatives, and it will guarantee big spending Democrats hold the power,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told HuffPost. “So it’ll backfire on him if his goal is to reduce the size and scope and cost of government. That’s the wrong way to do it.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has often clashed with his party on matters of deficits and spending, heaped praise on Musk as an “extraordinary innovator, inventor, businessman.” But he, too, urged Musk to fight for what he believes while staying inside the Republican tent.

“I would probably encourage him to stay involved in Republican primaries to make sure that the big government advocates don’t end up defeating the fiscal conservatives that are left in our party,” Paul said.

The richest man in the world announced over the weekend the formation of a new political party, which he dubbed the “America Party,” after Republicans passed a massive $4 trillion tax and spending bill. Musk fiercely opposed the legislation, calling it an “abomination” that would bankrupt America.

“Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom,” Musk wrote in a post online on Saturday.

He also threatened to spend money to unseat lawmakers who supported the bill, saying that they “will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.”

Musk spent hundreds of millions to help elect Trump in the 2024 election and campaigned on his behalf in battleground states. Upon being sworn in to his second term as president, Trump tapped the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive to lead the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, aimed at slashing government spending, and heaped praise on his efforts to shutter federal agencies without congressional approval.

The two men have badly fallen out since the early days of Trump’s administration, taking shots at each other in an epic feud online.

Trump called Musk a “train wreck” on Monday and warned that third parties can create “complete and total destruction and chaos.”

Asked about Musk’s new venture on Tuesday, Trump told reporters: “I think it’ll help us. It’ll probably help. Third parties have always been good for me.”

He added: “I don’t know about Republicans, but for me.”

Whether the notoriously erratic Musk goes forward with building a new political party remains to be seen. Doing so is enormously difficult and expensive, and multiple efforts to create a viable third party have failed in the past. Just ask the centrist political group No Labels, which struggled to recruit a candidate for the 2024 election.

There are huge challenges to third parties merely getting on the ballot that require signature gathering, staff, time and effort. Republicans would also have an active interest in challenging in court Musk’s attempts to get on the ballot, further drawing out the whole process.

But even some Republicans who will be facing voters next year acknowledged that Musk’s massive wealth ― should he deploy it ― could be formidable.

“Money wins sometimes,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), who is running for governor of his state, told HuffPost.

Democrats, meanwhile, are giving Musk and his new political ambitions a wide berth ― even if it could potentially help them in next year’s midterm elections. He remains persona non grata on the left due to his work on behalf of DOGE eviscerating the U.S. Agency for International Development in the name of deficit reduction. The agency had a $50 billion annual budget ― a miniscule sliver of total U.S. federal spending ― that went toward feeding and caring for people suffering from extreme poverty worldwide.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who has aligned with the GOP on some issues, bristled at the notion that he would ever leave the Democratic Party to join Musk.

“I’m not changing my party,” the senator told HuffPost on Thursday.

Other Democrats said it would be unwise for Republicans not to take Musk seriously.

“I would not underestimate that guy’s persistence at trying to do hard things,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) said. “You got to give him credit for that. I mean, flying a rocket and landing the booster, back on a pad? People were like, ‘That’s never gonna work.’ And he basically brute-forced it. Electric cars were not really a thing until he decided he wanted electric cars to be a thing. And he made it happen. So I would not underestimate him.”