Archive July 1, 2025

Billionaire Elon Musk said on Monday that he would form a new political party in the United States if a Republican-leaning Congress passes President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill”, which proposes tax breaks and funding cuts for healthcare and food programmes.

Musk has voiced criticism of the bill on multiple occasions over the past month and began suggesting the idea of the new party on social media starting early June.

Here is more about Musk’s reservations about the bill, and about his new proposed party.

What has Musk said about the America Party?

Musk has been saying that if the bill is passed, Republicans are no different from Democrats, who are often accused by conservatives of being profligate with spending taxpayers’ dollars.

The version of the bill that the Senate is discussing at the moment, if passed by both chambers of Congress, would expand the national debt by $3. 3 trillion between 2025 and 2034. The current US national debt stands at more than $36 trillion.

“If this insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day,” Musk posted on his social media platform, X, on Monday.

“Our country needs an alternative to the Democrat-Republican uniparty so that the people actually have a VOICE. ”

In an earlier post, Musk wrote: “It is obvious with the insane spending of this bill, which increases the debt ceiling by a record FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS that we live in a one-party country – the PORKY PIG PARTY! ! ”

The debt ceiling, set by the US Congress, determines the upper limit to the amount of money that the US Treasury can borrow. The current debt limit is $36. 1 trillion.

Why does Musk oppose the bill?

Once a key aide and major campaign donor for Trump, Musk had a public online falling out with the president in June over his criticism of the bill.

On June 3, Musk wrote on X: “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. ”

Musk alleged that Trump was linked to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein  in a now-deleted post on X. However, Trump and Musk seemed to have reached a detente when Trump told reporters that he wished Musk well while the latter wrote on X on June 11 that he had gone “too far” in his criticism of the US president.

However, since then, Musk has argued in a series of online posts that the bill would increase the debt ceiling, “bankrupt America”, and “destroy millions of jobs in America”.

Musk owns the electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer Tesla. The current version of the bill, with amendments made by the Senate, seeks to end the tax credit for purchases of EVs worth up to $7,500, starting on September 30. This could reduce the consumer demand for EVs in the US.

What is the America Party that Musk proposed?

On June 5, Musk posted a poll on his X account, asking his followers: “Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80 percent in the middle? ”

While social media polls are known to be nonrepresentative of broader public sentiment, 5. 6 million people voted on the poll, and 80. 4 percent responded with “yes”. Since then, Musk has repeatedly reposted the poll result, citing it as evidence that most Americans want a new party to be formed.

“Musk believes that 80 percent of Americans are unhappy with the two major parties and are not being represented,” Natasha Lindstaedt, a professor at the Department of Government, the University of Essex, told Al Jazeera.

While that number might not reflect the wider American public, it does point to a trend in the electorate; according to a Gallup poll from 2024, 43 percent of Americans identified as independent, 28 percent identified as Republican and 28 percent identified as Democrat. In other words, more Americans identify as independent than as either Democrat or Republican.

One of Musk’s followers replied to a post on X with an image with the text “America Party”. The world’s richest man responded: “‘America Party’ has a nice ring to it. The party that actually represents America! ”

How real is Musk’s threat?

Experts say Musk, whose net worth is $363bn as of Monday according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, would realistically be able to fund a third party in the US. However, it is still unclear whether he would go ahead with his plan or whether his party would have a significant effect on US elections.

“Musk certainly has the financial power to back a third party that could be very disruptive to the Republican Party, but it’s not certain if Musk will take on this risk,” Lindstaedt said.

Lindstaedt recalled how earlier this month, Musk backed down from his criticism of Trump on X. “If we take him at his word, he could spend hundreds of millions on this project,” she added.

“Musk has been ramping up his criticism of the bill lately, and he may find specific legislators [particularly from the House] would be willing to defect if their constituencies are more negatively affected by Trump’s policies,” Lindstaedt said, referring to the House of Representatives. “He will also have the attention of fiscal hawks in particular. ”

Lindstaedt added that among American voters, there is a “huge appetite” for a third party.

“The bill will leave the US spending hundreds of billions just in the interest, and the more Americans understand this, the more they may want to flock to something different. US public frustration with the traditional parties is at an all-time high, and Musk may be able to capitalise on this. ”

However, Thomas Gift, an associate professor of political science in the UCL School of Public Policy in London, said it was unclear whether Musk is serious and suggested that the barriers to breaking the Republican-Democrat duopoly are hard to scale for anyone.

“This is Elon Musk bluffing,” he told Al Jazeera. “He knows as well as anyone that the power of party machines behind Democrats and Republicans is too much to surmount. ”

Gift added that while forming a party is possible, “winning seats in Congress or the White House is another matter entirely”.

“At best, a third party will have little impact on US elections; at worst, it will play ‘spoiler’, taking votes from one of the two parties and de facto giving it to another. ”

What has Trump said about Musk?

On Monday, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, saying: “Elon Musk knew, long before he so strongly Endorsed me for President, that I was strongly against the EV Mandate. Electric cars are fine, but not everyone should be forced to own one. ”

Trump added: “Without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa. No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE. ”

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has escalated its violence in the occupied West Bank, killing 1,000 Palestinians.

As the world was distracted by Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed more than 56,331 people and uprooted nearly the entire population of 2. 3 million, Israel ramped up its violent raids on the West Bank, as well as its silence as Israeli settlers attack and kill Palestinian villagers.

The most recent casualty was Samer Bassam al-Zagharneh, a young man who was shot by Israeli soldiers on July 1.

According to the Wafa Palestinian news agency, al-Zagharneh was killed near the separation barrier, which Israel began building in 2002 to divide Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank and which cuts through Palestinian communities and agricultural fields.

This is all you need to know about how we got here.

Who is attacking Palestinians in the West Bank?

Israeli forces and Israeli settlers from illegal settlements that are choking the West Bank.

Settlers launch sudden, violent raids on towns, burning property, attacking people, and trying to drive them out of their homes.

At the same time, the security forces have surrounded refugee camps and raided them relentlessly, driving yet more people from their homes and not allowing them to return.

Many settlers have also been handed semi-automatic weapons and “integrated” into Israeli forces in the West Bank, to compensate for all the personnel deployed to carry out the war on Gaza.

This has blurred the lines between the security forces and settlers, empowering the latter to escalate violence against Palestinians.

Why is Israel doing this?

To displace Palestinians and annexe their land, according to residents, experts, rights groups, and observers.

In 2024, Israel confiscated more Palestinian land in the West Bank than in the previous 20 years combined, according to Peace Now, an Israeli nonprofit tracking land theft in Palestine.

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has led the charge after assuming control of the newly established “Settlements Administration” in February 2023.

The position allows Smotrich to advance Israel’s de facto annexation of the occupied West Bank by working to extend Israeli civil law over the area, in direct contravention of international law.

Smotrich has approved new outposts – illegal not only under international law but also under Israeli law – confiscated land, and enforced “settlement and construction regulations”.

In reality, Smotrich is relying on the occupation and settler violence to uproot Palestinians so that he can extend and approve new illegal Israeli settlements, Al Jazeera previously reported.

Is violence escalating?

Every day.

Israeli forces killed 70 Palestinians in the West Bank in the first month of 2025. Over the last two months, they have killed 34 people, according to the Shireen Monitor, a local observatory named after the murdered Palestinian Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

Many of the casualties were the result of Israel’s ongoing raids.

Israel says the raids are to root out Palestinian armed groups, which sprang up in 2021 to resist Israel’s worsening violence and entrenching occupation, in refugee camps across the West Bank.

However, Israel has reportedly committed myriad human rights abuses on the ground, such as killing unarmed civilians, preventing families from burying their murdered loved ones and razing entire neighbourhoods to the ground to trigger mass displacement.

Where is Israel attacking?

Israel is attacking the refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarem, Nur Shams, Far’a and Nablus, generating mass displacement.

Israel has used some of the same tactics it has deployed in Gaza – such as laying complete siege to the camps and uprooting most of the inhabitants, according to Forensic Architecture, a research group that investigates and monitors human rights abuses.

Israel has also attacked medical facilities and bombed Tulkarem and Jenin camps, indiscriminately killing civilians.

What about the settler attacks?

There were about 1,800 settler attacks across the occupied West Bank between October 7, 2023, and December 16, 2024, according to data collected by Tech for Palestine, a collective of tech volunteers that monitor rights abuses and advocates for the liberation of Palestinians.

What’s more, the Israeli army reported that there were at least 414 settler attacks against Palestinians during the first half of 2025. Yet the real figure is likely higher.

Many of the attacks have taken place in Area C.

The 1993 Oslo Accords, which were signed between Israeli and Palestinian then-leaders to initiate a peace process, carved up the occupied West Bank into three zones: A, B and C.

Area A is ostensibly under the full administrative and security control of the Palestinian Authority (PA) – an entity born out of the Oslo Accords – while Area B is under the PA’s administrative governance and Israeli security.

Area C makes up more than 60 percent of the occupied West Bank and is under Israeli administrative and security control.

Is there an end in sight?

It doesn’t look like it.

The Israeli army and settlers have stepped up attacks against Palestinians in recent days. The United Nations has warned that the army is trying to evict 12 communities in Masafer Yatta, in the southern Hebron hills in Area C.

Israel is trying to justify this expulsion as the area being a “military zone”, and, therefore, needed for military training – a pretext used to uproot Palestinians from their lands for decades.

On June 25, about 100 heavily armed Israeli settlers violently attacked Palestinians in the village of Kfar Malik, killing three people. The settlers were reportedly trying to burn homes to the ground when Palestinians came out to try and stop them.

In the neighbouring village of Taybeh, settlers burned a car to ashes, as seen in a video obtained by B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group monitoring abuses against Palestinians.

Al Jazeera has spoken to several Palestinians who say they are bracing for more attacks.

Israeli forces killed at least 95 people in Gaza on Monday with air raids that left 39 dead at a seaside cafe and gunfire that killed Palestinians trying to get desperately needed food aid, witnesses and health officials said.

One air raid hit al-Baqa Cafe in Gaza City when it was crowded with women and children, said Ali Abu Ateila, who was inside at the time.

“Without warning, all of a sudden, a warplane hit the place, shaking it like an earthquake,” he said.

At least 39 people were killed and dozens were wounded, many critically.

Among the dead was journalist Ismail Abu Hatab, as well as women and children who had gathered at the cafe.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said more than 220 journalists had been killed in Gaza since the war began in October 2023.