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Elon Musk's New Far-Right Nazi Party for America
It’s the opposite of Trump, who was interested only in building a vehicle for his own self-advancement. Musk is far more dangerous.
Jul 13, 2025
There are always worse political figures waiting in the wings.
In Israel, for instance, Benjamin Netanyahu is a relative moderate compared to some members of his cabinet, like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who believes that letting two million Palestinians die of hunger in Gaza is “justified and moral.” In Russia, ultranationalists to the right of Putin espouse racist and anti-immigrant views, while the country’s Communist Party recently declared that Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin was “a mistake.”
And then there’s Donald Trump, whom scholars consistently rank as the worst president in U.S. history. Even here, in a country of only two main parties and a blanderizing political discourse, worse options abound. Imagine if Trump’s successor actually believed in something other than his own enrichment and self-aggrandizement? What if Trump is simply preparing the ground for an authentically far-right leader to take over, someone even more extreme than Vice President J.D. Vance or Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)?
Elon Musk is prepared to use a lot of his considerable fortune to test that proposition.
What Musk Believes
It’s tempting to believe that Elon Musk decided to create a new political party in a fit of pique because of his personal falling-out with Donald Trump. In public, however, Musk links his decision to the recent passage of Trump’s legislative package and the several trillion dollars that the measure will add to the national debt. After bonding with Trump over eviscerating government, Musk was no doubt appalled to discover that the president, in the end, turned out to a more conventional tax-less-and-spend-more Republican.
Either way, Musk announced last week the creation of his new America Party. The details of the party platform are scant, as you might guess from a party created by tweet. Musk has naturally emphasized “responsible spending,” debt reduction, and deregulation. He has also added pro-gun and pro-crypto planks to his expanding platform along with “free speech” and “pro-natalist” positions.
These preferences might qualify the America Party as a typical libertarian project—if it weren’t for Musk’s Nazi salute at Trump’s inauguration, his support of the neo-Nazi party Alternative for Germany, and his fantastical accusations of “genocide” against the South African government for its treatment of white farmers. Not surprisingly, Musk entertains extreme views on race, genetics, and demography. As The Washington Post reports:
He has warned that lower birth rates and immigration are diluting American culture and the cultures of other majority-White and Asian countries. “We should be very cautious about having some sort of global mixing pot,” he said earlier this year. He has called unchecked illegal immigration “civilizational suicide” and “an invasion,” though he himself was working illegally, in violation of his visa, after he deferred his enrollment in a Stanford University graduate program to launch his career in the United States in the 1990s. He also warns that declining birth rates are leading to “population collapse,” and, having fathered over a dozen children, stresses the importance of “smart people” having more kids.
In his latest sign of malign intent, Musk removed controls from the artificial intelligence component of his social media platform. The newly unshackled Grok—named after a verb in Robert Heinlein’s sci-fi novel Stranger in a Strange Land that means a deep, intuitive understanding—began to rant anti-Semitically. As they say in Silicon Valley: garbage in, garbage out.
You might argue that it doesn’t really matter what Musk says or does, given that his approval rating plummeted to 35 percent during his tenure as DOGE-in-chief. Even his popularity among Republicans has dropped from 78 percent in March to 62 percent after his break with Trump in June.
But Americans are political amnesiacs. The ravages of DOGE, the insults traded with Trump: all of that could disappear down the memory hole once Trump’s economic program starts to hurt the blue-collar constituents that supported his 2024 candidacy. That’s when Musk will likely dust off his earlier criticisms of the “big and beautiful bill” and start promoting his new party in earnest.
Billionaires Gone Wild
Trump, a billionaire who has consistently overstated his assets and his importance, proved that an idiot with a big bank account could buy the presidency. Now along comes Elon Musk with even more money, a bigger ego, and a comparable lack of shame.
Musk’s political trajectory resembles Trump’s in other respects as well. They’re both supreme opportunists who have changed their political views to suit the moment. Musk used to donate to both Democrats and Republicans, considered the prospect of a Trump presidency to be an “embarrassment,” and believed in the importance of addressing climate change. He was always something of a libertarian in his embrace of the free market, but there was little indication in the early 2000s that he would veer off into extremes.
If historian Jill Lepore is right, however, Musk is just returning to his roots. His current views uncannily echo those of his grandfather, J.N. Haldeman, who moved from Canada to apartheid South Africa where his racist views were more the norm. She writes that Haldeman, in the 1930s,
joined the quasi-fascistic Technocracy movement, whose proponents believed that scientists and engineers, rather than the people, should rule. He became a leader of the movement in Canada, and, when it was briefly outlawed, he was jailed, after which he became the national chairman of what was then a notoriously antisemitic party called Social Credit. In the nineteen-forties, he ran for office under its banner, and lost. In 1950, two years after South Africa instituted apartheid, he moved his family to Pretoria, where he became an impassioned defender of the regime.
Like his grandfather, Musk escaped from his country of birth, in this case a South Africa just then shrugging off the apartheid system that had drawn J.N. Haldeman there. Eventually in Silicon Valley, Musk found a like-minded community. He palled around with Peter Thiel—and created PayPal together—before eventually falling out over artificial intelligence. Thiel, too, has uber-libertarian beliefs, as do other Silicon Valley disrupters like Marc Andreesen who have shifted rightward. They all have a fondness for the latest avatar of the Technocracy movement, Curtis Yarvin, himself a refugee from saner realms of the political spectrum, who has waxed rhapsodic over replacing a democratically elected president with a CEO-in-chief.
And that, perhaps, is the position that Musk imagines for himself. So what if the Constitution forbids a foreign-born president? As Trump has made clear, the Constitution too is ripe for disruption.
Anticipating Musk’s Next Political Move
Vladimir Putin was once a fairly conventional apparatchik before he donned the costume of a Russian nationalist. Viktor Orban was an ego-driven liberal before he found political opportunity in Hungary as an illiberal autocrat. Elon Musk’s political evolution could be compared to the trajectory of these two opportunists.
Elon Musk has indeed cultivated a relationship with Putin over the last two years—after initially supporting Kyiv following Russia’s 2022 invasion—and has floated pro-Russian peace plans to end the conflict in Ukraine. Musk met with Orban at Mar-a-Lago, along with Trump, and has tweeted support in the Hungarian leader’s direction from time to time. But the illiberalism of Putin and Orban is not really a model for Musk.
Instead, he has gravitated toward something even less palatable: the Alternative fur Deutschland. The AfD, founded in 2013, built its base on anti-immigrant sentiment, attracted extremists with its anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic rhetoric, and capitalized on anti-elite anger by railing against heat pumps. Musk has framed his support of the AfD as a defense of “free speech,” a familiar tactic of those who routinely engage in hate speech. In an op-ed in the German Welt am Sonntag newspaper that was calculated to influence the German elections, Musk wrote that only the AfD could save Germany by “ensuring that Germany does not lose its identity in the pursuit of globalization.” This was a particularly rich observation from one of the most powerful promoters (and beneficiaries) of globalization.
Musk himself lost his earlier identity as a globalizer to become today’s xenophobe. It’s a new type of “whitewashing” whereby internationalism somehow loses its prefix in the laundering process.
The center, however, is not giving up so easily. Even as a larger portion of the electorate is supporting the AfD, the German establishment is mobilizing against the right-wing party. The country’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution determined in May that the AfD is an extremist organization. More recently, the Social Democratic Party began the process of banning the AfD, which requires that a qualifying group meet two criteria: it must threaten Germany’s democratic order and it must be sufficiently popular to pose such a risk. If, after a lengthy legal process, the party is deemed unconstitutional, it is dissolved.
Obviously, such a process can’t dissolve public support for the party’s positions. Currently the AfD is polling at 23 percent, behind the Christian Democrats (28 percent) but ahead of all other parties. For the time being, these other parties are refusing to collaborate with the AfD at a federal level, though there have been some cases of collaboration at the subnational level. A ban—of a party or of collaboration with that party—may be satisfying, but it doesn’t address the reasons that the party is flourishing.
The Musk Effect
In the first flush of Brexit and Trump’s electoral victory in 2016, Steve Bannon attempted to build a National International out of far-right governments, parties, and movements. He largely failed. Now, Elon Musk has stepped up to the plate, with his media platform and his deep pockets.
As NBC reports:
Musk has posted online in support of right-wing street demonstrations in Brazil and Ireland. He has welcomed a new conservative prime minister in New Zealand and expressed agreement with a nationalist right-wing politician in the Netherlands. He’s met in person several times with the right-wing leaders of Argentina and Italy. His social media app X has complied with censorship requests from right-wing leaders in India and Turkey.
As Bannon discovered, the obstacles are many to creating a far-right network. Simply put, entities devoted to the politics of hate often end up hating each other as well.
Musk faces numerous speed bumps at home as well to the creation of a third party. The administrative hurdles are enormous, which is how the Democrats and Republicans have managed to preserve their duopoly. “I was on a Zoom call yesterday with people talking about this,” one political analyst told The New York Times. “A lot of them predicted that he’s the kind of person who, when he finds out how hard this is, he’ll give up.”
But Musk, like his Silicon Valley buddies, knows how to apply maximum pressure to weak points in a system in order to make it crack. He has promised to focus on just a few races where he might have the greatest likelihood of winning. It’s the opposite of Trump, who was interested only in building a vehicle for his own self-advancement.
Musk is far more dangerous. He actually has ideas. They’re terrible ideas, to be sure. But they are motivating him to build something more durable and, in the long term, potentially more disruptive.
It’s too terrifying a prospect to grok.
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Workers Want a New Political Party: The Question Is Not Whether to Build It, But How
The monied interests can’t stop the growing working-class understanding of the self-evident truth: The billionaires have two parties; we need one of our own!
Jun 28, 2025
In our YouGov survey of 3,000 voters in the Rust Belt States of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin, 57% of the respondents supported a new political formation outside the two major parties; Only 19% opposed. This finding is especially notable because these voters were asked to support a very radical statement of anti-corporate populism:
Would you support a new organization, the Independent Workers Political Association, that would support working-class issues independent of both the Democratic and Republican parties. It would run and support independent political candidates committed to a platform that included
- Stoping big companies that receive tax dollars from laying off workers who pay taxes;
- Guaranteeing everyone who wants to work has a decent-paying job, and if the private sector can’t provide it, the government will;
- Raising the minimum wage so every family can lead a decent life; and
- Stoping drug company price gouging and putting price controls on food cartels.
Every demographic group supported this proposal, led by 71% of Rust Belt voters less than 30 years of age, and 74% of those who feel very insecure about losing their job.
So How Do We Build It?
The knee-jerk response when hearing about building a new political party is to either think too big or too small, or to think it just can’t be done given the nature of our two-party system.
Some believe a new party will only be possible with the emergence of a charismatic figure who leads us out of the wilderness. They long for a progressive version of President Donald Trump, someone who can capture the Democratic Party—as he did with the Republicans—or smash it into smithereens. As my insightful friend put it: “Needless to say, your new party needs a charismatic leader. Mr. Trump is an entertaining idiot celebrity millionaire with a Borsht Belt sense of timing and a mean streak as deep as the Grand Canyon. Top that! Where is your Fidel or your Lech Walesa or your Jesus Christ?”
That’s exactly what’s wrong with building a new party on the back of a charismatic leader. Good luck finding one.
Imagine if unions and progressives formed an Independent Workers Political Association and fielded dozens of working-class independent candidates in bright red congressional districts.
Others argue for the “go small” approach, running independent progressive candidates to capture local seats on town councils, school boards, and as county supervisors. Local offices are an important part of developing a new party, but it is very hard at the local level, except in large, prosperous cities, to enact policies that meet the needs and interests of working people. Focusing locally often means delivering small or delivering not much at all. It is a start, but it doesn’t speak to the alienation workers feel about national politics.
The biggest argument against third parties, however, is the limitation built into our two-party system. A third party in most cases becomes a spoiler, siphoning away votes that help the worst party win. For instance, if an independent working-class candidate enters a race as a third party, most of their votes will come from the Democratic candidate, and most likely assure victory for the Republican. There are still many, especially among labor leaders, who blame Ralph Nader for the election of Geroge W. Bush in 2000.
This argument is true on a national level, but it no longer applies to many congressional races because much of the country now has a one-party system. Nearly 60% of all House races in 2024 were won by 25% or more. In 132 districts, the Republican won by 25% or more (and there were another 112 similarly lopsided Democratic districts). And between 2020 and 2024, the Republicans won 20 Senate races by 25% or more. You can’t be a spoiler in a one-party race. The terrain for challenges in those contests is wide open.
Dan Osborne Showed How That Could Be Cone in Deep-Red Nebraska
Republican Deb Fisher won the Nebraska Senate seat in 2012 by 15% against Bob Kerry, the Democrat. In 2018, she upped her margin of victory to 19%. In 2024, running for a third term, she was viewed as so strong a favorite that the Democrats decided not to waste resources by running anyone against her—a true one-party race.
Two working-class organizers noticed the vacuum in Nebraska and sought to identify a labor candidate who would run as an independent. After canvassing many state and local labor union people, they found Dan Osborne, a pipe fitter and former local union president who had led a strike against the Kellog corporation. They pitched him on the idea, and he decided to give it a go.
Together they raised funds, designed literature, formulated ads, and traveled around the state speaking to voters about the needs and interests of working people.
It scared the hell out of Fischer and Republicans, who ended up pouring millions of dollars into the race as Osborne gained traction.
Osborne threatened to unseat the three-term senator, but lost by 6.7%, a strong showing compared to the 20% margin by which former Vice President Kamala Harris lost to Trump in the state.
Imagine if unions and progressives formed an Independent Workers Political Association and fielded dozens of working-class independent candidates in bright red congressional districts, especially the 20 one-party districts in the Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Our polling strongly suggests those candidates, running on a strong populist economic platform, would do very well.
Would they win? Some might, but even if they all lost, close challenges and strong campaign rhetoric would help elevate issues important to working people and might even lead to concessions on the part of the opposition during the heat of a close campaign. And, as in Nebraska, a credible challenge will force campaign spending into districts where candidates unfriendly to labor are expected to win in a cake walk.
But as Ringo Sang, “You Know It Don’t Come Easy.”
The monied interests in the U.S., with trillions of dollars at their disposal, will make sure the two major parties come down hard on any efforts to build a new working-class political formation. They will spend millions to trash working-class candidates like Dan Osborne. They will try to outlaw third party efforts by making it nearly impossible for newcomers to gain ballot lines. Already, the New York state government, run by Democrats no less, has banned the use of the words “independence” and “independent” from ballot lines.
But the monied interests can’t stop the growing working-class understanding of the self-evident truth: The billionaires have two parties; we need one of our own!
How Do We Move Forward?
I can’t tell you what you should do, but I can share what I’ll be trying to do. I’m not a political organizer. I’m not an elected political or labor leader with a large base. I represent no one. But I am an educator, especially an educator of working people. My job and the job of the Labor Institute is to create educational programs, conduct research, and write articles that engage working people in the discussion of whether a new political formation should be built, and if so, how to do it.
Too many activists see education as a side show, a diversion from the goal of building something new. But every successful movement that has challenged the monied interests, from the anti-abolitionists to the rise of the trade union movement, required an educational core. People not only need to move forward, but they need to understand why.
It’s going to be a fight, and it’s going to take some time. But working people are more than ready for something new.
In the late 19th century, the populists fielded 6,000 educators to build the most powerful anti-corporate movement our country has ever experienced. That educational core helped to build an interracial working-class political formation that fought hard to protect the lives and livelihoods of small farmers and factory workers against the robber barons and Jim Crow. They spread the ideas that eventually led to controls on corporate power. Their dreams became the basis of the New Deal, the growth of the labor movement, and the establishment of working-class power and prosperity after WWII.
Sadly, that power and prosperity has been whittled away over the last generation. The Democrats, once the party of the working class, seemed to have switched sides. Working-class prosperity was transferred to the richest of the rich. Now, we need a new educational effort that addresses how to provide decent jobs and livelihoods for all working people, instead of fattening the wallets of the superrich, (something we have started to do with our Reversing Runaway Inequality educational programs.)
Those with large, vibrant constituencies, like labor union leaders, will have to take on the task of organizational building. They will need to test the waters by fielding independent working-class candidates in one-party districts, and running ballot initiatives that protect working-class needs, like prohibiting compulsory layoffs at corporations that receive taxpayer money.
It’s going to be a fight, and it’s going to take some time. But working people are more than ready for something new. Our polling shows that clearly.
Now is the time to build the politics of the future, instead of coming up with reasons from the past for why it can’t be done.
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Is Bernie Sanders Launching a Third Party? 'Not Right Now, No'
"Real change in this country will come about when an organized working class leads the fight for justice," the Vermont senator said in a new interview.
Nov 27, 2024
An email Sen. Bernie Sanders sent to supporters this past weekend fueled speculation that he could be laying the groundwork for a new political party in the wake of Democrats' crushing defeat in the 2024 election.
But in an interview with The Nation's John Nichols published Tuesday, Sanders (I-Vt.) said that he's not considering forming a party to challenge the entrenched Democratic and Republican establishments—at least not at the moment.
"Not right now, no," Sanders told Nichols, who asked the senator directly about his email to supporters and whether he intends to create a new party.
The senator argued in the email it is "highly unlikely" that the Democratic leadership will "learn the lessons of their defeat and create a party that stands with the working class and is prepared to take on the enormously powerful special interests that dominate our economy, our media, and our political life."
Sanders, who caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate, told Nichols that while he's not currently backing the creation of a new party, he is making the case that "where it is more advantageous to run as an Independent, outside of the Democratic primary process, we should do that." He also emphasized the need for more working-class candidates across the country.
"Real change in this country will come about when an organized working class leads the fight for justice. We need working-class candidates to help us do that."
The senator said the upstart campaign of Independent Dan Osborn—a union steamfitter who launched an unexpectedly close challenge to two-term Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) while shunning the state's Democratic establishment—"should be looked at as a model for the future."
"He took on both political parties," Sanders said of Osborn, who outperformed Vice President Kamala Harris by 14 percentage points in Nebraska and is now launching a PAC aimed at helping working-class candidates run for office.
"He took on the corporate world," Sanders continued. "He ran as a strong trade unionist. Without party support, getting heavily outspent, he got through to working-class people all over Nebraska. It was an extraordinary campaign, and it tells me that the American people are sick and tired of seeing the rich getting richer. They think billionaires dominate both political parties. They want real change, and Dan's campaign raised those issues in a very significant way."
Since Trump's victory earlier this month, Sanders has been scathing in his assessment of the current state of the Democratic Party and its long-term trajectory as it hemorrhages working-class support.
"The Democratic Party is, increasingly, a party dominated by billionaires, run by well-paid consultants whose ideology is to tinker around the edges of a grossly unjust and unfair oligarchic system," Sanders told Nichols. "If we are ever going to bring about real change in this country, we have got to significantly grow class consciousness in America."
In his email over the weekend, Sanders wrote that Democratic leaders "are much too wedded to the billionaires and corporate interests that fund their campaigns," making them reflexively hostile to the kinds of transformative changes needed to "build a multi-racial, multi-generational working class movement" with the power to challenge the nation's deeply unequal economic and political status quo.
"How do we recruit more working-class candidates for office at all levels of government? Should we be supporting Independent candidates who are prepared to take on both parties? How do we better support union organizing?" Sanders asked in the email. "These are some of the political questions that, together, we need to address. And it is absolutely critical that you make your voice heard during this process."
"Not me. Us," he added, reprising the central message of his 2020 campaign. "That is the only way forward."
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