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Donald Trump has lashed out at Elon Musk after the billionaire unveiled plans to launch a new US political party, calling him a “train wreck” in an escalation of the feud between the US president and his former ally.
Trump and Musk developed a political alliance on the 2024 presidential election, but the pair fell out after the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive’s brief stint as a White House adviser this year.
Musk has harshly criticised Trump’s flagship “one big beautiful bill”, which the president signed into law last week, accusing the administration of “bankrupting” the country because the law is projected to add more than $3tn to the US debt over the next decade.
Over the weekend, Musk announced that he would form a new, third party. He did not offer details or clarify if he intended to stand for office himself, but suggested that the party could focus on a few congressional races, raising questions about whether he could divert votes away from the Republican party in next year’s midterm elections.
Trump lashed out over the announcement late on Sunday, writing on his Truth Social platform that he was “saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails’ essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks”.
“He even wants to start a Third Political Party, despite the fact that they have never succeeded in the United States,” Trump added.
Shares in Tesla were down 7 per cent in pre-market trading on Monday. They have fallen just over 8 per cent in the past month as Musk has repeatedly clashed with Trump.
The president had previously derided Musk’s plan to create a new political party.
“We have a tremendous success with the Republican party. The Democrats have lost their way, but it’s always been a two-party system, and I think starting a third party just adds to confusion,” Trump told reporters.
He added that Musk could “have fun with it, but I think it’s ridiculous”.
Musk declared his intention to form what he called the “America party” on his social media platform X on Saturday, saying it was needed to combat the “one-party system” undermining US democracy so that Americans could have their “freedom” back.
Until recently one of Trump’s closest allies, Musk donated more than $250mn to the president’s election campaign and oversaw the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) budget-cutting operation, which required him to step back from the daily operations of his companies.
Speaking on CNN on Sunday, Scott Bessent, the US Treasury secretary, suggested that the boards of Musk’s businesses would be displeased by his plans to mount a political party.
“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,” the Treasury secretary said. He also took a dig at Musk, saying that the “principles” of Doge had been “popular”, but Musk was “was not”.
Musk later responded by calling Bessent a “Soros stooge”, referring to his past work for Soros Fund Management, the hedge fund founded by investor George Soros, a hate figure among the president’s supporters.
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