Turns out all of Elon Musk's bluster over opposing Donald Trump and forming a new political party was just that...bluster. A new report in the Wall Street Journal says Musk is quietly "pumping the brakes" on his third-party effort, weeks after the world's richest man vowed to form the America Party, for voters frustrated with Republicans and Democrats. The WSJ cites sources close to Musk saying he is instead focused on running his businesses Tesla and SpaceX, and looking to maintain ties with Vice President JD Vance, who is the current front-runner to succeed Trump in the White House.
Musk had a high-profile falling out with President Trump and Republicans after leaving the White House in May, with Musk strongly opposing Trump's Big, Beautiful Bill and vowing to work to unseat any Republican who voted for it. But Musk has since apologized for some of his criticisms of Trump and softened his rhetoric, signaling he may be ready to play nice. "He's never going to get Democrats to support him, so I think he's best off within the Republican party," says Dr. Robin Armstrong, RNC Committeeman and Galveston County Commissioner. "We (in the GOP) have lots of disagreements and lots of different factions, but I think we're going to fight it out in the primary and we'll see who wins."
Not only does Musk want to stay on the good side of Vance and other future Republican leaders, he also is finding out that getting a new political party off the ground is a difficult and expensive task which rarely leads to victory. "Third parties always harm the Republicans, and elect Democrats," says Armstrong. "And that's all it would do in this case, and then (Elon) would get what he certainly does not want, which is extreme left Democrat policies."
"So we appreciate that Elon is wise enough not to make that bad decision, and that he's on board working within the Republican party trying to change it from within."
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