He then elaborated, at great length, in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social. “I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails,’ essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks,” the president wrote. “He even wants to start a Third Political Party, despite the fact that they have never succeeded in the United States”.
“The one thing Third Parties are good for is the creation of Complete and Total DISRUPTION & CHAOS,” Trump added. He then went on to claim that Musk was motivated by discontent over his plan to end subsidies to promote the purchase of electric vehicles.
Trump also accused Musk of seeking improper influence by asking the president to nominate his friend, Jared Isaacman, to be Nasa administrator. After Musk left his role as a special government employee in the Trump administration, Isaacman’s nomination was withdrawn. “I also thought it inappropriate that a very close friend of Elon, who was in the Space Business, run NASA, when NASA is such a big part of Elon’s corporate life,” Trump wrote.
Related: Elon Musk’s ‘America’ party could focus on a few pivotal congressional seats
Earlier on Sunday, Trump’s treasury secretary said Musk should focus on running his companies and keep himself out of politics, a day after the world’s richest person – and a former White House adviser – announced the formation of a new political party.
“The principles of Doge were very popular – I think if you looked at the polling Elon was not,” Scott Bessent said on CNN’s State of the Union, referring to the so-called “department of government efficiency” that Musk temporarily headed after Trump’s second presidency began in January.
Opinion polls found Doge and Musk’s work implementing brutal spending and job cuts within the federal government to be deeply unpopular. And Bessent alluded to how investors in Musk’s companies – including the electrical vehicle maker Tesla, whose sales have suffered during Doge’s existence – publicly pleaded for his time with the Trump administration to be short-lived.
“So I believe that the boards of directors at his various companies wanted him to come back and run those companies,” Bessent remarked. “I imagine that those boards of directors did not like this announcement yesterday, and will be encouraging him to focus on his business activities, not his political activities.”
Bessent’s reaction came after Musk delivered on his promise to form a new party, and accused his one-time ally Trump of “bankrupting” the country by signing his massive tax and spending bill into law.
The tech billionaire announced the creation of the America party in a series of posts late on Saturday and early Sunday to X, the social media platform he owns.
“When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not