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If money talks in American politics, Elon Musk is bellowing. Having spent $288 million last year to spur Donald Trump and his allies into office, Musk has a new message as the president's massive tax and immigration bill appears headed for passage: Get in line with the cost-cutting agenda you campaigned on or get out of office.
There's no doubt that the richest man in the world could make a sizable impact at a time of widespread distrust of the political system and other democratic institutions. But his threat this week to start a third major political party has been met with widespread skepticism, as critics pointed to numerous failed bids over decades - including by lesser business titans - to disrupt America's two-party system.
Musk's challenges go far beyond the fraught history of third-party attempts. His business empire is struggling in the wake of his aggressive foray into politics. His clash with Trump and his costly and unsuccessful effort to elect a Wisconsin Supreme Court judge have eroded his political capital. And his popularity plummeted as the U.S. DOGE Service, the cost-cutting effort he oversaw, upended the federal government, further exposing Americans to his polarizing persona and ideas.
Even some of Musk's own supporters have expressed doubts about the direction he now plans to take, preferring that he stay focused on the business ideas that fueled his net worth of roughly $400 billion.
But as his improbable bid to buy Twitter and front-and-center role in the 2024 election showed, Musk has defied expectations before. If nothing else, he could make life difficult for lawmakers he says have reneged on their promise to cut spending.
"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!" Musk wrote on X, the social media platform he bought when it was still named Twitter, this week. "And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth."
Musk, who didn't respond to a request for comment, has already identified his next target: the reelection campaign of Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), who opposes Trump's signature legislative package. Urged to support Massie by former GOP congressman Justin Amash, a Trump foe who declared himself an independent in a 2019 op-ed decrying the two-party system as an "existential threat," Musk replied, "I will."
Massie did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday about Musk starting a third party, but he posted a Fox News story about the chief executive's plans to donate to his campaign. "An interesting thing just happened," Massie wrote on X.
With Trump already working to defeat Massie next year, the race in northern Kentucky appears to be the first to pit the two billionaires against each other.
On Capitol Hill, where the Senate passed the massive tax and spending bill Tuesday afternoon, there were few signs of alarm about Musk. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma), when asked by reporters Monday evening about Musk's threats to punish Republicans who vote for Trump's plan, said the billionaire is not top of mind at the Capitol.
"Doesn't matter, doesn't matter at all, no. It's not even been a conversation of ours," he said. "I mean, if we ran every time someone said something about our election, we'd live in fear the whole time."
Unless that someone is Trump. Two Republican lawmakers who have been at odds with Trump both said in rapid succession this week that they would not seek reelection. Rep. Don Bacon (Nebraska), who has taken issue with Trump's tariffs and policy toward Russia, announced his retirement Monday. The day before, Sen. Thom Tillis (North Carolina) said he would not seek a third term after Trump vowed to punish him for opposing his legislative package.
That leaves Massie as one of the only points of Republican resistance in Congress to Trump's agenda.
Musk's decision to cast himself as a potential third-party leader raises questions about his political vision. It has just been in the last few years that he has evolved from Democratic-leaning Trump critic to staunchly Republican Trump acolyte.
Trump allies mocked his latest incarnation.
"I think it's the ketamine talking in the middle of the night," said Trump pollster Jim McLaughlin, referring to media reports about Musk's drug use that he has denied. "Trump is the Republican Party right now. He is the conservative movement. There's not a hankering for a third party with Elon Musk."
A Gallup poll last year found that 58 percent of U.S. adults agree that a third party is needed in the U.S. because the Republican and Democratic parties "do such a poor job" of representing the American people. Support for a third party has averaged 56 percent since 2003, according to Gallup.
History shows that third-party candidates are rarely victorious. Ross Perot, one of the most successful independent candidates for president in American history, received about 19 percent of the popular vote and no electoral college votes.
"Third parties are traditionally spoilers or wasted votes," said Lee Drutman, senior fellow at the New America think tank. "But if Musk's goal is to cause chaos and make a point and disrupt, it gets a lot easier."
Ralph Nader's presidential bid in 2000 was a classic example of a disruptive campaign, Drutman said, contributing to an outcome so close that Republican George W. Bush prevailed over Democrat Al Gore only after the Supreme Court weighed in.
The trend in the U.S. toward increased political polarization also makes it more difficult for third-party candidates, Drutman said. When Perot ran in 1992, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush were both running as centrists, allowing Perot to argue that there wasn't much daylight between the two major parties. By contrast, the differences between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in the 2024 election were much more stark.
America's political diversity also complicates matters, Drutman said.
"If there clearly was a party in the center that was more popular than the Democrats or the Republicans, then someone would have organized it by now," he said. "It's not like we've just been waiting for Elon Musk to show up."
Musk entered politics in earnest during the 2024 presidential election. Beyond his massive financial investment, Musk frequently appeared alongside Trump at rallies and cheered him on over X.
But since Trump's win, Musk's experience in politics has been turbulent. Earlier this year, the billionaire and groups affiliated with him donated more than $20 million in a bid to help conservatives take control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. In the final stretch of the campaign, Musk drew derision for wearing a foam cheesehead at a town hall and for directing his America PAC to pay registered voters for signing petitions. A couple of voters won $1 million prizes.
But even with the race flooded with Musk's cash, the conservative judicial candidate - whom Trump also endorsed - lost by a wide margin in April. Musk's personal presence in the race did his candidate harm, said Barry Burden, director of the University of Wisconsin's Elections Research Center.
Conservative voters appreciated Musk's money, but that wasn't enough to overcome negative perceptions of an ultra-wealthy outsider injecting himself into the state's politics, Burden said, adding that Musk's presence galvanized greater liberal turnout.
"A new party is going to benefit most from Musk if they can draw on his resources but keep him in the background," Burden said. "And if he can portray himself as an innovator and a tech entrepreneur - and somebody who is really contributing to the American economy and funding this new operation without being its front person - I think that's probably going to lead to the most success."
Musk floated his idea of a new party nearly one month ago on June 5, after days of criticizing the massive GOP tax bill as a measure that would burden the country with "crushingly unsustainable debt."
"Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle?" Musk wrote, along with a poll.
Since then, Musk has regularly posted about starting a new party and going after lawmakers who vote for the spending bill. "If this insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day," Musk wrote Monday.
A person who has served as a sounding board for Musk, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, questioned Musk's ultimate strategy in undermining a party he had hoisted to victory beyond wanting "to be in the driver's seat."
"I agree our government is broken, but it's a tougher problem to fix than landing a rocket," the person said.