President Donald Trump dismissed Sunday Elon Musk’s launch of a brand new political occasion as “ridiculous,” escalating a feud with the billionaire who was as soon as one in all his strongest allies.
Trump additionally branded the SpaceX and Tesla tycoon a “TRAIN WRECK” who had gone “off the rails” after Musk mentioned he needed to problem the present U.S. political system.
The world’s richest man was virtually inseparable from Trump as he headed the cost-cutting “Department of Government Efficiency,” however they fell out exhausting over the president’s “big beautiful” tax and spending mega-bill.
“I think it’s ridiculous to start a third party,” Trump instructed reporters earlier than he boarded Air Force One on his method again to Washington from his New Jersey golf membership.
“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 mentioned.
South African-born Musk introduced Saturday that he would create the so-called “America Party” to problem what he referred to as the United States’ “one-party system.”
Musk says the president’s huge home spending plan would explode the U.S. debt, and has vowed to do all the things in his energy to defeat lawmakers who voted for it.
The former DOGE boss, who led an enormous drive to slash federal spending and reduce jobs, equated Trump’s Republicans with rival Democrats when it got here to home spending.
“When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy,” Musk posted on X, the social media platform that he owns.
Musk gave few particulars of his plan and it was not clear whether or not he had registered the occasion with US electoral authorities, but it surely may trigger Republicans complications within the 2026 midterm elections – and past.
‘Saddened’
In an indication of how delicate the problem might be for Trump, he took to his Truth Social community whereas nonetheless on Air Force One to double down on his assault on Musk.
“I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails,’ essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks,” Trump posted.
“The one thing Third Parties are good for is the creation of Complete and Total DISRUPTION & CHAOS, and we have enough of that with the Radical Left Democrats.”
In a prolonged diatribe, Trump repeated his earlier assertion that Musk’s possession of electrical automobile firm Tesla had made him activate the president because of the spending invoice slicing subsidies for such cars.
Musk has insisted that his opposition is primarily because of the invoice growing the U.S. fiscal deficit and sovereign debt.
Earlier Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent additionally threw shade at Musk’s makes an attempt to enter the political fray, telling him to stay to operating his corporations.
When requested by CNN if Musk’s plan bothered the Trump administration, Bessent supplied thinly veiled criticism.
“I believe that the boards of directors at his various companies wanted him to come back and run those companies, which he is better at than anyone,” Bessent mentioned.
“So I imagine that those board of directors did not like this announcement yesterday and will be encouraging him to focus on his business activities, not his political activities.”
Musk left DOGE in May to focus full-time on his company duties, with Tesla’s gross sales and picture particularly affected by his transient enterprise into Trump’s interior circle.
Trump gave him a grand send-off within the Oval Office, throughout a weird ceremony throughout which Musk appeared with a black eye and obtained a golden key to the White House from the president.
But simply days later the 2 had been exchanging bitter insults on social media after Musk criticized Trump’s flagship spending invoice.
Trump wouldn’t touch upon Sunday when requested if he could be asking Musk to return the golden key.
Source: www.dailysabah.com