US President Donald Trump on Sunday slammed former ally Elon Musk’s launching of a new political party as “ridiculous,” deepening the Republican’s feud with the man who was once his biggest backer.
Trump also branded the SpaceX and Tesla tycoon a train wreck who had gone “off the rails” after Musk said he wanted to challenge the current US political system.
The world’s richest man was almost inseparable from Trump as he headed the cost-cutting US Department of Government Efficiency, but they fell out over the president’s “big beautiful” tax and spending bill.
Photo: Reuters
“I think it’s ridiculous to start a third party,” Trump told reporters before he boarded Air Force One on his way back to Washington from his New Jersey golf club.
“It’s always been a two-party system, and I think starting a third party just adds to confusion. Third parties have never worked. So he can have fun with it, but I think it’s ridiculous,” he said.
South African-born Musk on Saturday announced that he would create the so-called “America Party” to challenge what he called the US’ “one-party system.”
Musk says the president’s massive domestic spending plan would explode US debt and has vowed to do everything in his power to defeat lawmakers who voted for it.
Musk equated Trump’s Republicans with the Democrats when it came to domestic spending.
“When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy,” Musk wrote on social media.
Musk gave few details of his plan and it was not clear whether he had registered the party with US electoral authorities, but it could cause Republicans headaches in next year’s midterm elections — and beyond.
In a sign of how sensitive the issue could be for Trump, he took to his Truth Social network while still on Air Force One to double down on his assault on Musk.
In a lengthy diatribe, Trump repeated his earlier assertion that Musk’s ownership of electric vehicle company Tesla had made him turn on the US president due to the spending bill cutting subsidies for such automobiles.
Musk has insisted that his opposition is primarily due to the bill increasing the US fiscal deficit and sovereign debt.
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