Elon Musk Launches "Third Political Party"
Libertarians seen sobbing into their limited edition Ron Paul mugs
In between breathless reports of packed anti-Trump rallies, shocking acts of political violence, and a flood of wholesome Father’s Day Facebook tributes over the weekend, you may have missed the big news: Elon Musk announced that he’s launching a new political party. He’s calling it the Gulf of America Party, which sounds like something your creepy uncle hosts in his garage every July with foot-long Costco dogs and Fox News on a loop.
Elon says this brand new party will be “neither left nor right,” but something bold, brave, and totally different. A place for the politically homeless. A solution to the two-party duopoly. A movement of the people.
There’s just one teeny tiny issue.
We already have a third party. It’s called the Libertarian Party. (We actually have a fourth party, too—the Green Party—but they’d rather drink engine oil than acknowledge a billionaire with a rocket fetish, so they don’t really count for these purposes.) Libertarians have been sitting here for more than fifty years waiting for someone like Elon to notice them. Or anyone, really. But Elon would have been especially cool.
The Libertarian Party is basically that kid who’s been doing the group project solo while everyone else is fistfighting over who gets to use the markers first. They believe in limited government, free markets, personal liberty (and property), and the sacred rights to chug raw milk and not pay taxes. They’re principled. They’re consistent. They really hate the Fed. Sure, they haven’t won many elections—mostly local, county-level positions—but they’ve got heart, they’re obsessed with free speech, and they don’t want to take away anyone’s guns.
Honestly, what’s not to love?
And yet Elon Musk—who has literally advocated for nearly every libertarian principle in the book and probably has a “Taxation is Theft” bumper sticker on his Model T (yeah, he owns one)—looked the existing third party in the eye, nodded solemnly, and said, “Nah, I think I’ll start my own.”
If the Libertarian Party is your homeschooled cousin who watches ReasonTV and debates zoning laws for fun, the America Party is your tech-bro roommate who’s been microdosing and binging Joe Rogan for 72 hours straight. Under Elon’s leadership, I’d expect a raw, unfiltered techtatorship ruled by chaos, ego, and an unhealthy amount of spite.
Because let’s be real. Elon isn’t launching a new political party out of civic duty or some deep ideological awakening—he’s doing it because he got his little feelings hurt. His bromance with Trump hit a rocky patch, and instead of texting it out like adults (or, you know, not at all), he’s threatening to start his own party like a middle schooler whose band won’t let him sing lead vocals.
It’s not that no party speaks to Elon’s values—it’s that none of them has given him the mic and made him the star of the show. Libertarians didn’t shower him with adoration. Republicans stopped laughing at his jokes. Democrats didn’t just abandon him—they turned him into a Bond villain. They sicced the FTC on him, called him a white supremacist enabler, accused him of platforming fascism, and lit their own cars on fire to spite him (nobody said they were the brightest bulbs on the porch). So now, like any billionaire with his own satellite Wi-Fi and a wounded ego would probably do, he’s staging a public breakup tour complete with subtweets, passive-aggressive polls, and the soft launch of a party that’s less about policy and more about energy. Who needs a “platform,” when you’ve got “rad vibes and a killer logo”?
Elon doesn’t want a third party. He wants his own party. Not of “the people” but of “his people”. You know, the ones who want to live on Mars, conduct all their financial transactions in Dogecoin, aren’t opposed to brain-chipping, and worship automakers who design cars that can fart on command. He wants to be the political version of Apple: Sleek. Disruptive. Irresistible. He fancies himself some sort of messiah who can disrupt the entire political system with the big, crazy, revolutionary idea of creating a THIRD political party.
The thing is, America will likely never have a third-party president. There’s even a name for it—Duverger’s law—which explains that in predominantly two-party systems, citizens avoid independent or nonpartisan candidates for fear of “wasting” their ballots. It’s like the class is taking a pizza poll and you’re a vegetarian. Even though your overwhelming preference is pineapple-jellybean-jalapeño, you’ll cast your vote for plain cheese all day long to avoid the risk of ending up with—gag—the Deluxe Cured-Meat-Lovers Delight.
Musk’s America Party isn’t a response to a broken system. It’s a branding exercise. It’s Tesla, but with slogans. It’s a midlife tantrum with a Twitter poll. It’s Elon being Elon: building a fancy new spaceship because he can afford it and because the bus had really ugly upholstery.
Convince me I’m wrong.
Trust me when I tell you that I don’t do this for my health (mental or otherwise). I do it for your thoughtful, enlightening, inspired, and sometimes side-splitting replies and feedback. Don’t let me down. :)
Elon can do whatever he wants but the reality is that Trump created the American-centered voting block in 2015-2016 and reaffirmed it in 2024 with his decisive win and then secured it with the mix of Cabinet members from across the political spectrum. Lincoln did this with his "Team of Rivals",2005, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Now, he has to defend it the rest of his tenure in office and JD Vance with Marco Rubio(likely) will follow as the next Presidential team. We will need a consistent 3 terms to turn this mess around to regain the Constitutional authority lost to decades of erosion. Along the way, the people want transparency for all the top-down shenanigans that were undertaken by both Dems and Repubs to keep themselves in power AND we want our money back!!
I've been a huge Elon fan since forever, but after the Trump tiff (in which he badly embarrassed himself) I felt he needed to go and sit this out for a while, concentrate on his excellent businesses, and keep quiet on the political scene. Sadly, he has not done so. And whilst I (per my prior comments on Jenna's stack) *do* believe the current red/blue uniparty needs dismantling by a new entrant, I don't think this is going to be the one.