Elon Musk should focus on running his companies and keep himself out of politics, Donald Trump’s treasury secretary said on Sunday, a day after the world’s richest person – and a former White House adviser – announced the formation of a new political party.
“The principles of Doge were very popular – I think if you looked at the polling Elon was not,” Scott Bessent said on CNN’s State of the Union, referring to the so-called “department of government efficiency” that Musk temporarily headed after Trump’s second presidency began in January.
Opinion polls found Doge and Musk’s work implementing brutal spending and job cuts within the federal government to be deeply unpopular. And Bessent alluded to how investors in Musk’s companies – including the electrical vehicle maker Tesla, whose sales have suffered during Doge’s existence – publicly pleaded for his time with the Trump administration to be short-lived.
“So I believe that the boards of directors at his various companies wanted him to come back and run those companies,” Bessent remarked. “I imagine that those boards of directors did not like this announcement yesterday, and will be encouraging him to focus on his business activities, not his political activities.”
Bessent’s reaction came after Musk delivered on his promise to form and bankroll a new US political party, and accused his one-time ally Trump of “bankrupting” the country by signing his massive tax and spending bill into law.
The tech billionaire announced the creation of the America party in a series of posts late on Saturday and early Sunday to X, the social media platform he owns.
“When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy,” he wrote.
“Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.”
Musk, who was appointed to slash federal spending through the unofficial Doge from January through May, has been a vocal critic of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said would increase the national deficit by $3.3tn (£2.85tn) through 2034.
It provides substantial tax cuts for the super wealthy while slashing federal safety net welfare programs, with up to 10.6 million people losing healthcare insurance.
The pair have feuded over its cost and impacts since Musk left the government in May, and on Friday, when Trump signed the bill into law in a Fourth of July picnic at the White House, the Tesla and SpaceX chief opened a poll on X: “the perfect time to ask if you want independence from the two-party (some would say uniparty) system”.
Respondents voted two to one in the affirmative, Musk announced late on Saturday. He gave few details about the structure of his new venture or a timeline for its creation. But his earlier posts suggested it would focus on two or three Senate seats, and eight to 10 House districts.
Both chambers of Congress are narrowly controlled by Republicans.
“Given the razor-thin legislative margins, that would be enough to serve as the deciding vote on contentious laws, ensuring that they serve the true will of the people,” Musk said.
Bessent was one Trump ally to quickly take a swipe at Musk’s move.
Musk’s series of posts to X, which continued into the early hours of Sunday, also appeared to indicate that his on-again, off-again relationship with Trump was firmly back in negative territory.
When the pair fell out earlier in the summer, Musk lashed out during an astonishing social media duel in which he stated Trump’s name was in the files relating to associates of the late pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Musk later deleted the post and apologized to the president as they embarked on an uneasy truce. On Sunday, however, Musk returned to the subject, reposting a photo of the jailed Epstein facilitator Ghislaine Maxwell that questioned why she was the only person in prison while men who engaged in sex with underage girls – a crime colloquially known in the US as statutory rape – were not.
In other posts he said it would be “not hard” to break the two-party stranglehold in US politics enjoyed by Democrats and Republicans. And he questioned “when & where should we hold the inaugural American Party congress? This will be super fun!”
There was no immediate comment from the White House about Musk’s announcement, but Trump has made clear his feelings about his former friend in recent days after criticism of the bill.
In response to Musk’s posts calling the bill “insane”, Trump said he might “look into” deporting the South African-born, naturalized US citizen billionaire. The president also mused about slashing subsidies to his companies, especially SpaceX, which holds billions of dollars in government contracts.
“Doge is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon. Wouldn’t that be terrible?” Trump asked reporters on Tuesday.
There is no requirement for new political parties in the US to register with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) initially, but reporting regulations kick in once spending surpasses what the FEC calls “certain thresholds”.
Musk is estimated to have spent more than $275m of his personal fortune helping to get Trump elected to a second term in the White House in last November’s presidential election.