America Party

Musk is founding a new political party, whose purpose is to champion neoliberalism (balanced budget, free trade, market deregulation, letting in skilled immigrants, etc). While he obviously can't run as its nominee in a presidential election, he could provide a lot of financial support to the campaign of whoever that person ends up being. But there are three lingering issues: first, that no third party has the electoral credibility/strong brand of the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. Second, the potential for widespread distrust of Musk or any candidates backed by him, seeing how he ticks the boxes of both foreigner and world's richest man. Third, the relative unpopularity of neoliberalism in today's America.

Thoughts?

Seems like a dumb move from a dumbass.

I'm in.

I 'do keep wondering when a new political party will emerge,

Whether as third party, or by eating one of the older parties.

I'm not sure that 'this will be that party though.

. . .

Never really studied political theory any,

Do political parties tend to only emerge after big societal change/questions?

American Revolution, Spread West, Civil War, We've reached the West Coast, American Intervention in the World, The Internet.

. . .

I'd 'imagine there'd be more parties if not for all the fast travel and internet.

If he can't get that to work with a party that actually has a chance of winning, I don't see why he'd have a better chance of success backing a third-party candidate. If they get big enough to win, they get big enough to throw him under the bus, same as a Republican or Democrat.

In that case, you should visit this site:

I wouldn't underestimate the power of a grand idea. A lot of Republicans are fed up with being the Trump party, and probably some moderate Democrats are fed up with their own party but tolerate it because Trump's the only plausible alternative they can see. Your average person who's old enough to remember (re: was old enough at the time to be paying attention to) the golden age of moderate politics that was the 1990s, I suspect, wants to go back to that time.

If the fed up people on both sides can be convinced that there's an actually viable third party rising to prominence, it could inspire the kind of mass defection not seen since Ross Perot, especially since Trump's finally out of the picture for good in 2028 so the perceived stakes of a third party vote would be lower for people on both sides. All Musk needs to do is broadcast this idea in great enough quantity, over a long enough stretch of time, that people see it everywhere and come to believe it's legit and not astroturfed. And he has enough money that there's a greater than zero percent chance of pulling it off.

Also, while people don't like "dark money" in politics (re: the judgeship or whatever local race Musk quietly funded), which denotes secretive manipulation, I think that if Musk is upfront and vocal about his involvement in this movement then in theory it'd be no more of an obstacle than Trump being a billionaire in 2016.

Well, he has X to market his new political party. Remember that broadcast TV is in decline and social networks are more effective for communicating whatever to people. So I think he has a lot of chances to make it succeed.

Maybe he bought Twiter thinking ahead to this America Party.

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I'm upset with Republicans for their abandonment of fiscal conservatism and near sighted policy, and I don't like the more radical path it seems Dems are heading down. I'm not a fan of musk but I, along with others I imagine, am intrigued. 

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/elon-musk-america-party-poll-b2782782.html

America party could work . Trump needs strategic gains here for the right. Maybe because I am a techno utopian but the policies look superior to the Republican party. UBI investment in tech so China doesn't beat us to a super AI. So it smooths out the failures of libertarianism and pulls from the left and right if the left can get over the name behind it. 

Honestly, this sounds like a vanity project from a billionaire who still doesn’t understand why his worldview is increasingly unpopular.

The idea of a third party centered on “neoliberalism”—a doctrine of deregulated markets, free trade, budget austerity, and privatization—feels like a political fossil in 2025. Neoliberalism already defines the economic consensus of both major parties. Democrats and Republicans may differ in rhetoric, but both have long upheld the corporate status quo, gutted public spending, favored tax cuts for the wealthy, and presided over decades of wage stagnation and growing inequality. So Musk’s “America Party” isn’t proposing anything new—it’s just rebranding an ideology that’s already been driving U.S. policy for over 40 years.

And let’s be real: if neoliberalism actually delivered for most Americans, we wouldn’t be in this mess. What we’ve seen is a decaying middle class, skyrocketing healthcare and housing costs, offshored jobs, gutted unions, and growing debt burdens. Both parties have failed to fix this, largely because they’re bought into the very economic framework Musk now wants to turn into a political brand.

Musk himself is the worst possible face for a new party. He’s a foreign-born billionaire who’s burned trust with the left through union-busting and platforming far-right voices, and with the right by pushing EVs and green tech. More importantly, he represents everything people don’t trust about politics: concentrated wealth, unaccountable power, and the illusion that the ultra-rich can “fix” democracy from above. If he bankrolls this effort, it’ll only confirm people’s suspicions that the party isn’t about empowering voters—it’s about shielding elites from accountability under a new label.

Lastly, I don’t think most Americans consciously use the word “neoliberal,” but they know what it feels like: closed factories, endless wars, broken healthcare, and being told to “learn to code” when they’re laid off. That anger and alienation are real—and it’s why populist movements have gained so much traction across the spectrum. The public isn’t crying out for more technocrats promising market solutions. They want justice, stability, and control over their own lives—none of which neoliberalism has ever delivered.

So if Musk wants to throw money into a political experiment, fine. But the America Party, as described, isn’t a path forward. It’s just a return to the same top-down economics that got us here. And I think people see through that now more than ever

I mean, the price you pay for ever and ever increasing modernity is that you need to learn skills that can keep up with this, and few Americans do. I've even heard it said that the average computer science major took low quality courses and often can't perform basic computer tasks.

That's on all of us, and honestly it's a testament to the current economic system that we still live as well as we do despite this.

We have fewer doctors per capita than other OECD countries, because fewer Americans are interested in becoming doctors than their counterparts overseas. Despite that, we spend almost $2 trillion a year between Medicare and Medicaid. What does subsidizing a relatively scarce commodity do? You jack up the price of service for everyone who doesn't have the subsidy. Which creates more demand for the subsidy, and on and on the cycle goes. In 1960, before LBJ instituted his Great Society, Americans spent only 5% of total GDP on healthcare. Now that figure is between 17-18%.

Also, the total body of HHS regulations is 7.24 million words, or over 18,000 sections, in length. This doesn't count state-level regulations. The notion that we have a laissez-faire healthcare sector is demonstrably false.

You can thank NIMBYs for this who will both plop down a suburb wherever they please and veto the construction of multiresidential housing.

I don't see the issue with this. Workers are best suited to negotiate their own wages, not outsourcing this job to some dude who might be a poor negotiator or susceptible to bribery, and who'll extort a monthly due from you in any case. In an economy where companies are competing for a small pool of skilled workers, all you need to do is make yourself valuable and you won't need collective bargaining to get ahead. And if your labor isn't particularly valuable, companies will find someone overseas who's willing to do the job in your place.

A consequence of globalization. How are you going to stop this, restrict international trade? 

Yes, because we spend 50% more a year than we collect in taxes, and when one guy tried to cut spending suddenly there were millions of Americans who unironically wanted to murder him. Perhaps overspending is the problem?

If you define neoliberalism simply as the status quo, with the current capitalist-socialist hybrid economy, then sure. It screwed us over. But Musk strikes me very much so as a man who wants to do away with this, his weird flirtation with UBI aside.

I wish we had a Canada party

Appreciate the thoughtful response—genuinely. You raise some valid concerns, and I want to engage with them seriously because this is the kind of debate we should be having: not about personalities like Musk per se, but about systems and material outcomes.

You mention that the price of modernity is the need for more advanced skills, and that Americans aren’t keeping up. I’d argue that’s part of the problem neoliberalism creates and then blames the victims for. When education becomes privatized, when college is priced out of reach, when vocational training is underfunded, and when lifelong learning is a luxury, we’re setting up an economy where only the privileged can “adapt.” That’s not a skills problem—it’s a systemic design failure.

On healthcare, yes, we have high demand and limited supply. But that’s not a failure of regulation—it’s a consequence of commodifying a human need. We train fewer doctors not because Americans are lazy, but because medical education is astronomically expensive and gatekept. And we don’t regulate prices—we regulate access while letting prices soar. The profit motive drives healthcare decisions more than patient outcomes. Every other OECD nation manages to provide care for less, with better health results. That suggests the system—not the people—is broken.

NIMBYism and zoning absolutely factor into housing costs. But let’s not pretend deregulation alone fixes that. Developers in deregulated markets still build luxury units for maximum profit, not affordable housing. And when public housing is slashed or privatized (a hallmark of neoliberal policy), the market doesn’t “fill the gap”—it exploits it.

On unions—this is where I think people often misunderstand both the problem and the potential. It’s true that many unions today are bureaucratic, out of touch, or even corrupt. That’s a real issue, but it’s not an argument against unionism itself—it’s an argument for greater worker involvement and direct democracy within unions. Whether it’s a traditional union or a workers’ council (which also qualifies as a union by definition), the principle is the same: giving workers collective power to negotiate the terms of their labor, rather than relying on the myth of “individual negotiation” in a capitalist system designed to isolate and exhaust us.

When people say, “just make yourself valuable and you won’t need collective bargaining,” they ignore the fact that under capitalism, even the most valuable worker can still be exploited, underpaid, or replaced the moment they demand more. A single worker has no leverage. But a group of organized, informed, and active workers? That’s real power. Companies rely on labor to function, and when that labor is unified—when it can credibly threaten to withhold work—it becomes a force that has to be respected.

Of course, the system is designed to make this difficult. Burnout, long hours, stress, and fear of retaliation all discourage participation. But that’s exactly why staying involved—attending meetings, raising issues, voting on contracts, and holding leadership accountable—is so vital. It’s not enough to have a union or council in name. It has to be lived. The strength of any workers’ organization depends on the activity and consciousness of its members. If we leave it on autopilot, it becomes just another layer of management. If we engage, it becomes a weapon for real democracy in the workplace.

So no, I don’t romanticize modern unions—but I also don’t dismiss the power of collective action. When organized labor is active and militant, it wins. History proves that. The problem isn’t too much worker power—it’s too little.

Offshoring is a product of globalization, but globalization didn’t fall from the sky—it was deliberately shaped by neoliberal trade agreements that prioritized profit over domestic job security. You can shape trade to protect workers. We just didn’t.

As for debt burdens—yes, spending has outpaced revenue. But who got the money? Endless war, corporate bailouts, and tax cuts for the wealthy account for trillions. Meanwhile, austerity is almost always aimed downward, never at the people who caused the crises. If spending is the issue, let’s talk about where the spending goes—and where it doesn’t.

Lastly, you suggest Musk wants to “do away with” the current hybrid economy. Maybe—but it’s unclear what he wants to replace it with. If it’s even more deregulation, less public accountability, and a society driven by billionaires with pet policies, then it’s still neoliberalism by another name. The problem isn’t the blend of capitalism and socialism—it’s that we’ve socialized risk and privatized reward. If Musk’s vision doesn’t reverse that, it’s not a solution.

In short, if “America Party” is just a reboot of the same pro-corporate, anti-worker policies that got us here, I don’t care how shiny the branding is. A better society isn’t going to come from the top down.

Musk is a genius enterpreneur, but as a political figure he is a clown. Even if he manages to assemble freedom-minded individuals around him - perhaps, by bribing them - he has no serious platform to offer. At best, it will be another Libertarian Party, a bunch of ivory tower philosophers who have no chance to ever win anything more than a couple of seats in the House or local elections.

An example of a serious political figure who brings about real liberalization is Javier Milei. The guy has read Objectivists, Austrian economists and prominent anarcho-capitalists and used to be a professor in economics: the guy knows what he is doing. And what has Musk read? Twitter posts from trolls? :D

The major American parties are deeply corrupt and incompetent, but that does not mean that a dude with a bunch of mental illnesses whose tongue works independently from his brain is a serious alternative. People should stop cherishing the idea of incompetent outsiders coming in and shaking things up: shaking things up just shuffles them, it does not magically arrange them properly.

I mean, if what peopke want is another 4-8 years of circus, then sure, why not. But I prefer going to circus on weekends, where the clowns are much better at their craft, and where their jokes do not involve wasting trillions of people's dollars.