Illusory hopes: Elon Musk announced the creation of a new party

On Friday, July 4, US President Donald Trump signed a "Big, beautiful Act," or, more simply, a budget bill. American businessman and founder of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, has repeatedly criticized this document, against which conflicts broke out between him and the head of state throughout June. As a result, Musk took the unexpected step of creating a new political party in the United States. Read more about the initiative of the American businessman, as well as his chances of success, in the Izvestia article.

The New US Party

Elon Musk, amid contradictions with Donald Trump, decided to create a new political party in the United States. Last weekend, he already submitted the documents for the creation of The America Party to the Federal Election Commission.

Donald Trump also spoke about Elon Musk's decision to create the Party of America: "I think it's ridiculous to create a third party. We have great success with the Republican Party. The Democrats have lost their way, but it's always been a two-party system, and I think creating a third party only adds to the confusion."

The creation of the new party was preceded by a vote on Elon Musk's page on the social network X, where he wrote: "Independence Day is a great time to ask if you want independence from the two-party (and some say one-party) system! Should we create the America Party?"

The voting lasted a day, and 1.2 million users took part in it. 65.4% of the participants were in favor, 34.6% of X users were against.

Anastasia Bunina, a junior researcher at the Primakov Center for North American Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, draws attention to the fact that Elon Musk made the decision to organize a new political party through a survey on the social network X. She believes that in many ways the vote is untenable due to the fact that it is impossible to determine its participants: they could be both Americans who have the right to vote and foreigners.

Using the example of other parties

American political scientist Malek Dudakov, in an interview with Izvestia, noted that Elon Musk's current project does not look like something serious and impressive yet. According to the expert, in order to understand the situation, it is important to remember that in American history there have been numerous attempts to create influential third forces. As an example, he cites the Progressive Party of the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, which he created at the beginning of the 20th century due to a split within the Republican Party. Another example is the Reform Party of American businessman Ross Perot, which appeared in the 1990s.

"Every time it ended in failure, because the American electoral system favors bipartisanship," says Malek Dudakov.

This is largely due to the fact that both the Democratic and Republican parties have fairly strong control over the political system. Because of this, according to the American expert, "it is extremely difficult to break through this bipartisan firewall."

Despite the two-party system that has developed in the United States, there are still other political parties in the country, for example, the Greens. Its representatives in various states successfully hold elected positions, but only at the local level.

Anastasia Bunina agrees with the fact that Elon Musk has almost no chance of success. It is also important that Musk does not have any program, except for reducing government spending. If it appears, it will be aimed at business and the IT sector. However, according to the expert, opponents of existing parties may appear in some electoral districts, but there will be few of them. For the most part, they can be business people who have little real political experience and no chance of winning.

— What Elon Musk is doing now looks very unsystematic and chaotic. I think that all this will lead to the same chaotic and unsystematic results," Anastasia Bunina believes.

If we talk about the two-party system of the United States in general, then for the success of someone besides Republicans and Democrats, according to the expert, several new parties should be created at once, which would consist of real political figures. In the future, Elon Musk may come up with some ideas, but if he suggests something that is not very popular with the majority of the potential electorate, for example, about the right to bear arms or abortion, it will immediately alienate voters from him.

Musk's chances of success

At the moment, Elon Musk is trying to change the current situation, so it can be assumed that his Party of America will participate in both the midterm parliamentary elections of 2026 and the presidential elections of 2028. In this context, Malek Dudakov notes that Musk has no strong candidates.

Another problem that a businessman may face, according to the American expert, is financing. This is due to the fact that Elon Musk does not have the opportunity to invest billions of dollars in forming a large party. In addition, he also does not have any political organization that would help collect signatures for the registration of candidates.

"Even his maximum program is to elect several congressmen and senators and form a political force in order to use it as a kind of golden card in negotiations with Democrats and Republicans, it looks like fiction at the moment, of course," says Malek Dudakov.

The midterm congressional elections are about a year and a half away, but the likelihood of success for the Party of America is not obvious, and we need to monitor developments.