The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has threatened to sponsor the formation of a new party in the United States to challenge the two dominant parties.
The Democratic Party and the Republican Party have dominated US elections for decades and have produced almost all American presidents.
As the Senate debated President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” on Monday before a final vote, Musk issued a stark warning via his social media platform X.
“Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame! And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth,” he wrote.
A few hours later, he went further, declaring on X that if the “insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day.”
“Our country needs an alternative to the Democrat-Republican uniparty so that the people actually have a VOICE,” he wrote.
After contributing $277m to Trump’s political campaign, Musk became a vital part of the US president’s orbit and his administration. Doge, which oversaw abrupt and chaotic cuts to various government programs, claimed it saved $190bn. But the effort may also have cost taxpayers $135bn, according to an analysis by the Partnership for Public Service (PSP), a nonpartisan non-profit that focuses on the federal workforce.
For weeks, Musk has railed against Trump’s policy bill, leading to a very public and ugly fight with Trump earlier this month.
The Senate’s version of the bill would add nearly $3.3tn to the deficit over the next decade, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate, whereas the House-approved bill would add $2.4tn to the deficit over the next decade.
The bill, now in the Republican-controlled Senate, is strongly opposed by Democratic lawmakers who argue that it will provide tax cuts for the super-rich, cut healthcare and Medicaid for over one million poor Americans, and slash school feeding for millions of children from poor homes.
Mr Musk, however, opposes the bill because, he says, it would increase the US debt ceiling by about five trillion dollars.
