When Elon Musk seeks political entry

Politics is a complicated business that calls for constant negotiation, and ethical guardrails to ensure balance between politics, government, and business.

The big, beautiful partnership between Donald Trump and Elon Musk has been unravelling at great speed. The rupture in ties between the US president and the world’s richest man led to the latter announcing Sunday a new political party — America Party — to give back Americans their freedom. America needs more choices than the present two parties, Musk seems to believe. Good luck to him.

Trump 2.0 has shaken up the foundations of the bipartisan political consensus in the US and opened up the space for disruptors. (REUTERS)

Musk bet big on Trump and MAGA (Make America Great Again) platform. Post-election, he led Trump’s cost-cutting initiative under the department of government efficiency (DOGE). He was out of DOGE soon, and the final parting came over President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill that seeks to rework government finances. The two men also had multiple unpleasant exchanges on social media. Trump’s take on Musk’s party was that he has gone completely “off the rails” to “essentially become a TRAIN WRECK”.

Trump 2.0 has shaken up the foundations of the bipartisan political consensus in the US and opened up the space for disruptors. That Zohran Mamdani, a self-declared democratic socialist, won the Democratic ticket to contest the New York mayoral election suggests a restive political constituency unhappy with the political status quo. But Mamdani, while endorsing radical agendas and a welfarist civic vision, chose to launch his politics from an established platform. He may have taken the cue from Trump, who captured the Republican platform to launch his MAGA agenda. But Musk is offering a third way, on a “freedom” platform, in anticipation of backing from a small-government-pro-business constituency dissatisfied with Trump’s economic vision. Politics is a complicated business that calls for constant negotiation with stakeholders, and ethical guardrails to ensure balance among politics, government, and business. In Musk’s world, there are no red lines or conflicts of interest. Who is to walk into that world of “freedom” remains to be seen. After all, the two-party system in the US contains multitudes.