Despite Elon Musk’s announcement this weekend that “the America Party is formed,” the road to becoming a viable third party in American politics is arduous and expensive — even for a billionaire.
Plus, after President Donald Trump fired the former chair of the Federal Election Commission, there’s not enough FEC commissioners to issue the necessary advisory opinion to approve a new national political party and allow it access to higher contribution limits.
The FEC hasn’t had enough members for critical duties since May and Trump still hasn’t nominated new members to the commission.
“It’s definitely annoying and something that would need to be addressed if this got any more momentum,” Collin Anderson, a political scientist at State University of New York at Buffalo, told NOTUS. But, he added, Musk has also said he plans to launch a super PAC for the party, which could fundraise for unlimited contributions without FEC approval.
The FEC wrinkle is also far from Musk’s only (or highest) hurdle to launching party that can get on a ballot and eventually win elections, according to election experts.
“Getting on the ballot anywhere is no small thing. Anybody can file anything with the Federal Election Commission saying, ‘I’m a candidate for this office,’ but actually getting on a ballot is a much bigger deal and it takes a lot of time and effort,” campaign finance attorney Brett Kappel told NOTUS.
Depending on the state, a new party has to gather tens of thousands of signatures from registered voters — not just an X poll — to get a candidate on the ballot. And Republicans, likely to see Musk-backed third-party candidates as spoilers, could block those efforts.
“You would expect them to fight tooth and nail to keep his candidates off the ballot,” Kappel said.
A slew of apparently fake filings were submitted to the FEC this weekend after Musk’s announcement, including those of the so-called X Party, US American Party, Useless Party and DOGE Party. On his social media platform, X, he called out at least one filing as fake, and the FEC sent at least seven letters Monday to various filers laying out potential enforcement action for false filings.
Musk’s social media kick off of the “America Party” came after his public feud with Trump, which took place after he had left the White House and voiced strong opposition to Trump’s budget bill.
“If this insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day,” Musk wrote on X at the end of June.
Musk entered the administration promising to slash government spending, resulting in crushing cuts to various environmental and health projects, exaggerated savings numbers and not a dime cut from contracts with his own companies.
Trump responded to Musk’s announcement about the party with a Truth Social tirade.
“I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails,’ essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks,” Trump wrote. “He even wants to start a Third Political Party, despite the fact that they have never succeeded in the United States.”
It’s not immediately clear how Musk plans to actually build this new party, or what states he would start the process in. On X he pitched a proposal to “laser-focus on just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts” to be able to swing tight, party-line votes like the recent budget bill.
“If we assume that he does all of the legal stuff correctly and everything, the steps that I think would signal that it is an actual, legitimate party would be going out and getting candidates elected at some level. It doesn’t need to be national, it doesn’t have to even be state level, it could be local government,” Anderson said. “Going out and actually having an impact on an election I think is what actually shows as a functional party.”
But winning seats in Congress is a lofty goal a little more than a year out from the midterms for a party that doesn’t have candidates or state ballot access. And the history of even established third parties has shown they rarely garner more than a small percentage of the vote.
“Even as rich as he is, for what he’s trying to do, the money’s not good enough. He’s going against organizations that have a huge amount of money, but also lots of other resources,” third party expert Bernard Tamas at Valdosta State University told NOTUS.
He said it’s more likely that Musk’s party would apply pressure on major-party candidates than actually win seats.
“If the goal is actually to win elections and put your own people in the government, that is very unlikely to succeed,” Tamas said.