How the Musk-Trump blowup ends, nobody knows.
Most commentary gives President Donald Trump the advantage. But Elon Musk’s willingness to spend his fortune on elections gives him one distinct advantage — the ability to drive a brittle party system into chaos and loosen Trump’s hold on it.
Thus far, Musk has raised two electoral threats. First, his opposition to Trump’s One Big, Beautiful Bill has raised the specter of his funding primary challenges against Republicans who vote to support the legislation. Second, he has raised the possibility of starting a new political party. There are limits to how much Musk can actually reshape the political landscape — but the underlying conditions of our politics make it uniquely vulnerable to disruption.
The threat of Musk-funded primaries might ring a little hollow. Trump will almost certainly still be beloved by core Republican voters in 2026. Musk can fund primary challengers, but in a low-information, low-turnout environment of mostly Trump-loving loyal partisans, he is unlikely to succeed.
However, in the November 2026 midterm elections, Musk could have much more impact for much less money. All he needs to do is fund a few spoiler third-party candidates in a few key swing states and districts. In so doing, he would exploit the vulnerability that has been hiding in plain sight for a while — the wafer-thin closeness of national elections.
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In a straight-up battle for the soul of the Republican Party, Trump wins hands down. Not even close. Trump has been the party’s leader and cult of personality for a decade.
But in a battle for the balance of power, Musk might hold the cards.
Currently, the US political system is “calcified.” That’s how the political scientists John Sides, Chris Tausanovitch, and Lynn Vavreck described it in their 2022 book, The Bitter End: The 2020 Presidential Campaign and the Challenge to American Democracy. Partisans keep voting for their side, seeing only the reality that makes them the heroes; events may change, but minds don’t.
In a 48-48 country, that means little opportunity for either party to make big gains. It also means a small disruption could have massive implications.
Elon Musk doesn’t have a winning coalition — but he may not need one to hurt Trump
Let’s imagine, for a moment, that Musk is serious about starting a new political party and running candidates.
He will quickly find that despite his X poll, a party that “actually represents the 80 percent in the middle” is a fantasy. That mythical center? Being generous here, that’s maybe 15 percent of politically checked-out Americans.
Realistically, the coalition for Musk’s politics — techno-libertarian-futurist, anti-system, very online, Axe-level bro-vibes — would be small. But even so, a Musk-powered independent party — call it the “Colonize Mars” Party — would almost certainly attract exactly the voters completely disenchanted with both parties, mostly the disillusioned young men who went to Trump in the 2024 election.
Imagine Musk funds his Colonize Mars Party in every competitive race, recruiting energetic candidates. He gives disenchanted voters a chance to flip off the system: Vote for us, and you can throw the entire Washington establishment into a panic!
Practically, not many seats in the midterms will be up for grabs. Realistically, about 40 or so House seats will be genuine swing seats. In the Senate, there are realistically only about seven competitive races. But that means a small party of disruption could multiply the targeted impact of a precision blast with a well-chosen 5 percent of the electorate in less than 10 percent of the seats. Quite a payoff.
The short-term effect would be to help Democrats. Musk used to be a Democrat, so this is not so strange. If Musk and his tech allies care about immigration, trade, and investment in domestic science, supporting Democrats may make more sense. And if Musk mostly cares about disruption and sending Trump spiraling, this is how he would do it.
Musk is an engineer at heart. His successes have emerged from him examining existing systems, finding their weak points, and asking, What if we do something totally different?
From an engineer’s perspective, the American political system has a unique vulnerability. Every election hangs on a narrow margin. The balance of power is tenuous.
Since 1992, we’ve been in an extended period in which partisan control of the White House, Senate, and the House has continually oscillated between parties. National electoral margins remain wickedly tight (we haven’t had a landslide national election since 1984). And as elections come to depend on fewer and fewer swing states and districts, a targeted strike on these pivotal elections could completely upend the system.
A perfectly balanced and completely unstable system
It’s a system ripe for disruption. So why has nobody disrupted it?
First, it takes money — and Musk has a lot of it.
Money has its limits — Musk’s claim that his money helped Trump win the election is dubious. Our elections are already saturated with money. In an era of high partisan loyalty, the vast majority of voters have made up their minds before the candidate is even announced. Most money is wasted. It hits decreasing marginal returns fast.
The very thing that makes our politics feel so stuck is exactly what makes it so susceptible to Musk’s threat.
But where money can make a difference is in reaching angry voters disenchanted with both parties with a protest option. Money buys awareness more than anything else. For $300 million (roughly what Musk spent in 2024), a billionaire could have leverage in some close elections. For $3 billion (about 1 percent of Musk’s fortune) the chance of success goes up considerably.
Second, disruption is possible when there are enough voters who are indifferent to the final outcome. The reason Ross Perot did so well in 1992? Enough voters saw no difference between the parties that they felt fine casting a protest vote.
In recent years, the share of voters disenchanted with both parties has been growing steadily. The share of Americans with unfavorable views of both parties was 6 percent in 1994. In 2013 it was 28 percent. In a recent poll, a plurality of adults (38 percent) now say neither party fights for them. Both parties (and Trump) are very unpopular. The overwhelming majority of voters (70 percent) describe themselves as disappointed with the nation’s politics. Voters are angry, and eager for dramatic change.
Election after election, we’ve gone through the same pattern. Throw out the old bums, bring in the new bums — even if 90-plus percent of the electorate votes for the same bums, year in and year out. But in a 48-48 country, with only a few competitive states and districts, a rounding-error shift of 10,000 votes across a few states (far fewer than a typical Taylor Swift concert) can bestow full control of the government. Think of elections as anti-incumbent roulette.
The system is indeed “calcified,” as Sides, Tausanovitch, and Vavreck convincingly argue. Calcified can mean immovable. But it can also mean brittle. Indeed, the very thing that makes our politics feel so stuck is exactly what makes it so susceptible to Musk’s threat.
Most money in politics is wasted. But if one knows how to target it, the potential for serious disruption is quite real.
