Former Trump White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said Monday that tech billionaire Elon Musk’s new “America Party” will struggle to maintain its base without ties to traditional political parties.
“Musk has enough money to keep it going for a long time, and he may have a good candidate here or there, but for the most part, you know — remember Jesse Ventura when he won governor of Minnesota?” Gidley, who served in Trump’s first White House and on his 2020 campaign, said during an appearance on Newsmax. “He had no natural base from the Republicans or the Democrats in his Legislature, so nobody supported him.”
“So, it’s a weird place to be in,” he told the hosts of “American Agenda.”
The Tesla CEO threatened multiple times to establish a new political party following his public spat with President Trump over the tax and spending megabill — which was signed into law by the president July 4. After posting several polls on his social platform X, Musk announced he would officially launch the “America Party” on Saturday.
Musk has also decided to work across affiliations to ramp up support for the new faction. Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang and others have already reached out to the tech giant to join his proposed third party — set to launch its first bid in 2026 during the midterm elections.
“I’m excited for anyone who wants to move on from the duopoly, and I’m happy to help give someone a sense of what the path looks like,” Yang told Politico in a statement Monday.
A page for the new “America Party” — which comes after Musk threatened to back primary challengers against vulnerable Republican lawmakers who supported the massive bill — said it was “built on common sense not consultants.”
The billionaire, who reignited his feud with Trump after lawmakers advanced the legislation, said earlier this week that he formed the party to “give you back your freedom.”
“I don’t know where this goes. It’ll come to fruition. Whether it has any longevity or not, you know, remains to be seen,” Gidley told Newsmax.
Key Trump allies, including Steve Bannon, have railed against the idea and suggested it would quickly fail.
“The foul, the buffoon. Elmo the Mook, formerly known as Elon Musk, Elmo the Mook. He’s today, in another smear, and this — only a foreigner could do this, think about it — he’s got up on, he’s got up on Twitter right now, a poll about starting an America Party. A non-American starting an America Party,” Bannon said Friday on his “War Room” podcast. “No, brother, you’re not an American.”
Musk is a U.S. citizen who was born in South Africa.
Trump also took a swing at Musk following his announcement, saying he’s gone “completely off the rails.”
“He even wants to start a Third Political Party, despite the fact that they have never succeeded in the United States – The System seems not designed for them,” he wrote Sunday on Truth Social.
The president added, “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, who have lost their confidence and their minds!”
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