The 2024 election showed—narrowly—that more Americans still hope to preserve Western civilization than dismantle it. But as the saying goes, the road to hell is often paved with good intentions.
Take Elon Musk, for instance.
According to CNBC, the Tesla CEO and former Trump ally wiped out over $68 billion in Tesla’s market value this week after announcing the formation of a new political movement: the “America Party.”
On Monday alone, Tesla shares plunged nearly 7%, triggering the staggering loss in market capitalization.
Musk had already poured $288 million into the 2024 election to help reelect President Donald Trump and boost GOP candidates, per The Washington Post. But the financial hit Tesla just took is roughly 225 times greater than that donation—a loss so massive that, just a generation ago, it would have made him the richest man in the world. (For comparison, Bill Gates topped the global wealth list in 2000 with “just” $63 billion.)
Simply put, Musk’s plunge into political rebellion is proving to be an expensive one.
And investors aren’t thrilled.
“Very simply, Musk diving deeper into politics and now trying to take on the Beltway establishment is exactly the opposite direction that Tesla investors/shareholders want him to take during this crucial period for the Tesla story,” wrote Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities in a note to clients.
The fallout comes after Musk broke with Trump over the newly signed “Big Beautiful Bill,” a sweeping government spending package the president hailed as transformative. Musk, who led the Department of Government Efficiency during Trump’s first term, blasted the bill as another bloated example of Washington’s fiscal irresponsibility—what he calls “Uniparty” behavior.
On X (formerly Twitter), Musk has continued his crusade, officially unveiling the America Party’s stance on gun rights by calling the Second Amendment “sacred.” While that rhetoric might resonate with conservatives, political movements aren’t built on lone declarations—even from the world’s richest man.
History offers a lesson here: the Republican Party didn’t form because one man got fed up—it coalesced around a shared mission to stop the expansion of slavery. That singular issue united northern voters and, just six years later, carried Abraham Lincoln into the White House.
Musk’s third-party experiment, by contrast, seems more like a billionaire’s personal brand extension than a populist uprising.
Still, he could influence upcoming elections. On Saturday, Musk floated plans to invest heavily in the 2026 midterms, potentially targeting just a handful of Senate and House races to shift the balance of power. In theory, with enough funding and media presence, he could make an impact.
But what would that impact look like? Would Musk-backed candidates align with MAGA Republicans, or carve out a new political identity altogether? Would they oppose Democrats on cultural and fiscal grounds, or merely muddy the ideological waters?
And looking toward 2028—an election without Trump on the ticket—the future of Musk’s movement may hinge more on his relationship with rising Republican figures like Vice President J.D. Vance than on his estrangement from Trump himself.
One thing is clear: the America Party could cost Musk dearly, both financially and politically. Whether it delivers anything meaningful in return is still anyone’s guess.