Elon Musk launches new political party to give America ‘freedom back' after explosive row with Trump & White House exit
TRUMP CARD Elon Musk launches new political party to give America 'freedom back' after explosive row with Trump & White House exit
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
ELON Musk has launched a new political following his explosive row with President Donald Trump.
The billionaire has promised he will "give back your freedom" via a post on X today.
Sign up for Scottish Sun
newsletter
Sign up
1
Elon Musk has reportedly launched a new political party
Credit: AFP
It comes after Musk created an online poll on July 4 where he asked his followers if he should spearhead a fresh political party.
Of those polled, over 65% answered 'yes', which paved the way for the announcement.
"By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!" he wrote.
"When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy.
"Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom."
The announcement from Musk comes after President Donald Trump signed a tax-cut and spending bill into law on Friday, which the billionaire chief executive officer of Tesla fiercely opposed.
Musk spent hundreds of millions on Trump's re-election and led the Department of Government Efficiency under the Trump administration aimed at slashing government spending, but the two have since fallen out over disagreements about the bill.
Trump earlier this week threatened to cut off the billions of dollars in subsidies that Musk's companies receive from the federal government.
Musk said previously that he would start a new political party and spend money to unseat lawmakers who supported the bill.
Republicans have expressed concern that Musk's on-again, off-again feud with Trump could hurt their chances to protect their majority in the 2026 midterm congressional elections.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
44 minutes ago
- BBC News
Elon Musk tok about launching im own new political party
Elon Musk tok say e go launch new political party, weeks afta e quarrel wit US President Donald Trump. Di billionaire announce for im social media platform X say e don set up di America Party, e dey stand as a challenge to di Republican and Democratic two-party system. However, e dey unclear if de don formally register di party wit US election authorities. Musk, wey dem born outside of di US dey ineligible to run for di US presidency, but e neva tok who go lead di party. E first raise di prospect of forming a party during im public fight wit Trump, e leave im role in di administration and engage in serious public criticism wit im former ally. During dat time, Musk post one poll on X wia im ask users if dem want new political party in di US. Referencing di poll for one post on Saturday, Musk write: "By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you go get am! "Wen e come to bankrupting our kontri wit waste & graft, we live in one-party system, no be democracy. "Today, dem form America Party to give you back your freedom." As of Saturday, di Federal Electoral Commission neva publish any documents indicating the party had been formally registered. While high-profile players dey outside di traditional two-party system in US politics, e dey difficult for dem make dem gain strong enough nationwide popularity to pose real threat. In di presidential election last year, candidates from di likes of Libertarian Party, di Green Party and di People Party all try in vain to stop Trump or im Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, from winning. Musk was until recently core supporter of Trump, dancing alongside am during election rallies last year and e bring of one im pikin, four-year-old son to meet Trump in di Oval Office. E dey among Trump key financial backer: Musk spend $250m (£187m) to help am regain office. Afta di election, e appoint am to lead di so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), wey dey cut di federal budget. Elon and Trump fallout start wen he leave di administration in May and publicly criticise Trump tax and spending plans. Di legislation - wey Trump call "big, beautiful bill" - narrowly passed by Congress and di president sign am into law dis week. Di massive law include huge spending commitments and tax cuts, and e go add more than $3tn to di US deficit ova di next decade. Crucially for Musk, wey be di owner of electric-vehicle giant Tesla, Trump bill no focus on green transition or subsidies for products like Teslas. "Elon fit get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far," Trump write for im social media site, Truth Social, dis week. "Without subsidies, Elon go probably need to shop and head back home to South Africa." Trump threaten say Doge go look into subsidies in favour of Musk companies, e dey also tok about di billionaire oda businesses. Musk na also di owner of SpaceX, whey don launch rockets for di US goment, and Starlink, wey dey provide satellite service for US and European defence forces.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
The UN is our best defence against a third world war. As Trump wields the axe, who will fight to save it?
The United Nations and its agencies have long struggled with funding shortfalls. Now an entrenched problem is becoming an acute crisis in the shadow of Donald Trump's executioner's axe. The US is the biggest contributor, at 22%, to the UN's core budget. In February, the White House announced a six-month review of US membership of all international organisations, conventions and treaties, including the UN, with a view to reducing or ending funding – and possible withdrawal. The deadline for decapitation falls next month. Trump's abolition of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and scrapping of most aid programmes, has already badly damaged UN-led and UN-backed humanitarian operations, which rely on discretionary funding. Yet Trump's axe symbolises a more fundamental threat – to multilateralism and the much-battered international rules-based order. The basic concept of collective responsibility for maintaining global peace and security, and collaboration in tackling shared problems – embodied by the UN since its creation 80 years ago last week – is on the chopping block. The stakes are high – and Washington is not the only villain. Like the US, about 40 countries are behind in paying obligatory yearly dues. Discretionary donations are declining. The UN charter, a statement of founding principles, has been critically undermined by failure to halt Russia's illegal war of aggression in Ukraine (and by last month's US-Israeli attack on Iran). China and others, including the UK, ignore international law when it suits. The number and longevity of conflicts worldwide is rising; UN envoys are sidelined; UN peacekeeping missions are disparaged. The security council is often paralysed by vetoes; the general assembly is largely powerless. By many measures, the UN isn't working. A crunch looms. If the UN is allowed to fail or is so diminished that its agencies cannot fully function, there is nothing to take its place. Nothing, that is, except the law of the jungle, as seen in Gaza and other conflict zones where UN agencies are excluded, aid workers murdered and legal norms flouted. The UN system has many failings, some self-inflicted. But a world without the UN would, for most people in most places, be more dangerous, hungrier, poorer, unhealthier and less sustainable. The US is not expected to withdraw from the UN altogether (although nothing is impossible with this isolationist, ultra-nationalist president). But Trump's hostile intent is evident. His 2026 budget proposal seeks a 83.7% cut – from $58.7bn to $9.6bn – in all US international spending. That includes an 87% reduction in UN funding, both obligatory and discretionary. 'In 2023, total US spending on the UN amounted to about $13bn. This is equivalent to only 1.6% of the Pentagon's budget that year ($816bn) – or about two-thirds of what Americans spend on ice-cream annually,' Stewart Patrick of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace noted. Economic development aid, disaster relief and family planning programmes would be gutted. The impact is potentially world-changing. Key UN agencies in the firing line include the children's fund, Unicef – at a time when the risks facing infants and children are daunting; the World Food Programme (WFP), which could lose 30% of its staff; agencies handling refugees and migration, which are also shrinking; the International court of justice (the 'world court'), which has shone a light on Israel's illegal actions in Gaza; and the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors Iran's and others' nuclear activities. Trump is already boycotting the World Health Organization, the Palestinian relief agency (Unrwa) and the UN Human Rights Council, and has rescinded $4bn allocated to the UN climate fund, claiming that all act contrary to US interests. If his budget is adopted this autumn, the UN's 2030 sustainable development goals may prove unattainable. US financial backing for international peacekeeping and observer missions in trouble spots such as Lebanon, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kosovo, currently 26% of total spending, will plunge to zero. The withdrawal of USAID support is already proving lethal, everywhere from Somalia and Sudan to Bangladesh and Haiti. UN officials describe the situation in post-earthquake, conflict-riven, aid-deprived Myanamar as a 'humanitarian catastrophe'. Research published in the Lancet found that Trump's cuts could cause more than 14m additional deaths by 2030, a third of them children. The WFP, the world's largest food aid supplier, says its projected $8.1bn funding deficit this year comes as acute hunger affects a record 343 million people in 74 countries. And other donor states are failing to fill the gap left by the US. So far in 2025, only 11% of the $46.2bn required for 44 UN-prioritised crises has been raised. The UK recently slashed its aid budget by £6bn, to pay for nuclear bombs. UN chiefs acknowledge that many problems pre-date Trump. António Guterres, the secretary general, has initiated thousands of job cuts as part of the 'UN80' reform plan to consolidate operations and reduce the core budget by up to 20%. But, marking the anniversary, Guterres said the gravest challenge is the destructive attitude of member states that sabotage multilateral cooperation, break the rules, fail to pay their share and forget why the UN was founded in the first place. 'The charter of the United Nations is not optional. It is not an à la carte menu. It is the bedrock of international relations,' he said. Guterres says the UN's greatest achievement since 1945 is preventing a third world war. Yet respected analysts such as Fiona Hill believe it's already begun. The UK and other democracies face some pressing questions. Will they meekly give in to Trump once again? Or will they fight to stop this renegade president and rogue states such as Russia and Israel dismantling the world's best defence against global anarchy, forever wars and needless suffering? Will they fight to save the UN? Simon Tisdall is a Guardian columnist
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Can Israel and Hamas co-exist? Trump's ceasefire depends on it
After months of grim bloodshed there seems to be some movement. On Friday night, Hamas said it was 'seriously ready' to discuss a ceasefire. Whether it is ready to resolve the conflict by trading all remaining hostages in return for a lasting peace and thousands of prisoners remains unclear. President Trump, always quick with an upbeat take on international negotiations, said: 'There could be a Gaza deal next week.' He will meet Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, on Monday and has said he will be 'very firm' about the need to end the conflict. As this chatter went on, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) had already mounted days of heavy strikes, probably an attempt to force Hamas over the line. And indeed, it was only late last week that the Palestinian Islamist group signalled it was open to discussions, apparently overcoming a deep-seated scepticism after the collapse of two previous ceasefires. 'Although Hamas has been severely degraded and much of its leadership eliminated,' says Hasan Alhasan, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 'it's difficult to see how Israel can apply any more pressure to the group.' Israel 's military response to the attack of October 7, 2023 — destroying the Hamas-led paramilitary organisation that had carried out the massacre — was effectively complete by early last summer. It probably accounted for the death or capture of most of the 25,000 militants serving at the start of war. Yet its success — achieved at the cost of thousands of civilian deaths — was temporary. Unable to end the conflict without collapsing Israel's governing coalition, Netanyahu cut troop levels and Hamas began to regenerate. By the time of the second ceasefire, intelligence assessments put the group's strength back at 15,000 to 20,000. Meanwhile, Israel had eliminated its senior leadership, including three men cited by the International Criminal Court for possible war crimes: Yahya Sinwar, Hamas's overall leader in Gaza; Mohammed Deif, its military commander; and Ismail Haniyeh, its exiled political leader, assassinated in Tehran by Mossad. MOHAMMED SALEM/REUTERS When the January cessation began, the group attempted to deal with tensions within the Palestinian community by a combination of propaganda — stage-managed hostage releases — and coercion. Beatings increased, as did executions of those rebelling against Hamas's rule and blaming the group for dragging the people of Gaza into a disastrous war. Israel's answer to the question of how to put Hamas under additional pressure involved launching a huge military operation in mid-May to reoccupy most of the Gaza Strip and further squeeze relief operations. Israeli politicians generally deny using aid as a weapon, since it takes them into legally fraught territory. However, security officials have privately expressed their aim as being to free the Israeli hostages and bring about the eviction of the Palestinian militant leadership by ratcheting up pressure on ordinary citizens. Their have some anti-Hamas protests by Palestinians, including in Beit Lahiya in March REUTERS HAITHAM IMAD/EPA Given Gaza is hardly a democracy, and Hamas relies in part on coercion to exercise control, this strategy has clear limitations. But the Israeli argument is that it produced the two previous ceasefires that freed the great majority of its citizens being held in the strip. Now, Israel says, harsh measures have brought Gaza's rulers to the table again. Hamas 'is certainly weaker', says Colonel Eran Lerner, a military intelligence veteran now at the Jerusalem Institute for Security and Strategy, citing the reoccupation of large parts of Gaza and shattering of the command structure. But, he concedes, 'still they are persistent enough to be able to impose their authority on the people of Gaza, and the holding of the hostages gives them great leverage'. With new talks in prospect, what happened in March, when Israel abandoned the previous phased deal and resumed operations, stands as a significant obstacle. Thus, the Trump team's talk of a 60-day truce, during which a further ten hostages (out of an estimated two dozen still alive) would be released, appears to the Palestinian leadership to be an invitation to repeat exactly what happened at the start of this year. So, the Hamas spokesman Taher al-Nunu insisted last week that the movement was 'ready to accept any initiative that clearly leads to the complete end to the war'. For Hamas, there has always been an understanding that its survival is linked to the terms on which it surrenders the final hostages. And, while negotiations have explored such subjects as getting the top tier of the leadership to leave Gaza, or forming a broad-based administration to run the enclave, the group has tried to do everything possible to keep its cadres intact for the day after this war. The judgment now of whether satisfactory terms can be achieved will rest mainly with Izz al-Din al-Haddad, Hamas's surviving leader in Gaza. Also known as Abu Suhaib or the 'Ghost of Qassam', Haddad is a man whose rise up the chain of command has involved successive steps into dead men's shoes. Thus in 2021 he succeeded the assassinated commander of the Gaza City brigade, in November 2023 took charge of the northern part of the strip, when another leader was slain, and in May this year of the whole organisation, after an airstrike killed Mohammed Sinwar, who had himself stepped into his brother Yahya's place. Attempts this year to kill Haddad, a senior commander on October 7, took the lives of two of his sons. Mohammed Sinwar Haddad's home patch, in the north of the strip, was long regarded by the Israelis as Hamas's main stronghold. Consequently, the north, and Gaza City, have been subjected to the most intense military action of the past 20 months. Much of the population is now dispersed in the tented camps of the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone on the coast. Haddad owes his position to good fortune — or divine providence, as his supporters might see it — and his ability to maintain a grip on the remaining Israeli hostages. Released captives speak of the close personal interest Haddad took in them, with visits where he spoke to them in Hebrew. He will not want to surrender this card unless he is confident his movement will survive. So the word is that Trump's people are trying to convince Hamas that the 60-day ceasefire will work this time as the opening phase of a comprehensive deal that ends the bloodshed. For their part, the Israelis acknowledge they cannot eradicate support for the Islamist movement, which, as Lerner puts it, may carry on, 'as long as [Hamas] are disarmed as a fighting organisation, and no longer in power'. This is not simply an Israeli demand. 'Hamas's crackdown on dissent is intensifying,' Moumen al-Natour, a Palestinian dissident and co-founder of the We Want to Live movement, wrote last week in the The Jewish Chronicle. 'As soon as the ceasefire is announced, Hamas militants will rise from their tunnels, hungry for revenge.' Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, bitterly opposed to the movement and its Muslim Brotherhood allies elsewhere in the region, also favour removing Hamas from power. But the issue is whether the group's political survival also allows it to retain a coercive hold. Qatar, having given a home to the Hamas leadership for years, has hitherto sought to ensure the movement's survival. Majed al-Ansari, Qatar's foreign affairs spokesman, effectively echoed the Palestinian movement's demands when he said late last month: 'We are trying to find that sustainable process that would bring us to lasting peace in the region.' But since the Iran-Israel war, Qatar's position may have shifted, Alhasan believes 'the key Arab states are mostly aligned on the need to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and put Israel off its current war footing in the hope of lowering tensions across the region'. So there may be a window of opportunity to halt the Gaza conflict. But the questions of who would dominate any post-conflict broad-based authority in Gaza, and who would provide its security muscle, remain vexed, to say the least. The killing in recent weeks of hundreds of people at aid points set up by the Israelis to break the militants' hold over food supplies serves as a grim portent. As desperate Gazans have rushed in, security contractors hired to protect the sites, Israeli troops, Palestinian tribal gangs and Hamas itself have all ended up with blood on their hands. Gazans mourn relatives killed while waiting for humanitarian aid KHAMES ALREFI/ANADOLU/GETTY IMAGES Some believe a lawless, divided enclave where the IDF can operate at will is precisely what Netanyahu wants. But for those who will be asked to invest in rebuilding the place, from the Gulf states to Europe, that will hardly be acceptable. They will want security, though until now have proved reluctant to commit forces to guarantee that future stability. • All of these challenges await the would-be peacemakers — and that is before we even look at the business of whether the currently constituted Israeli coalition could agree to a long-term peace deal, or whether Netanyahu will have to call an election to form such an administration. Given the disappointments of previous attempts, it's best not to get ahead of ourselves. The questions for next week will centre on whether the combination of bitter hardships in Gaza and White House guarantees are enough to convince Hamas to deliver. If it does, both the US and Israel will have to ask themselves just how much of a Hamas presence they can live with in the enclave after the guns have fallen silent.
