Photo: Francis Chung/Politico via AP Images
Elon Musk may no longer be welcome in the White House, but don’t believe for a second that he’s done with politics. Between federal contracts and potential regulation, the government plays too big of a role in Musk’s business ventures for the world’s richest man to ever truly turn his back on Washington. In Musk’s own words, “Trump has 3.5 years left as President, but I will be around for 40+ years.”
That’s why progressives must remain committed to blocking his right-wing agenda and draining him of his power — even now that he’s no longer running the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
Despite everything he has done in full view of the American public, Musk loves to cast himself as a centrist. He recently called for a new “America Party” to “represent the 80% in the middle.” Backed by an utterly unscientific poll on X, he produced a matching 80% approval rate for his idea. But while Musk certainly has the money to launch a third party, the reality is that such an effort would likely go nowhere.
Recent polling reveals that only 15 percent of Democrats and 34 percent of independents approve of Musk. That number rises to 76 percent among Republicans, making Musk the third most popular national Republican figure among Republican voters, behind only Donald Trump and JD Vance. In other words, Musk remains a powerful force in Republican politics, but his hypothetical third party would only draw from Republican voters and the independents who already vote with them.
The reality is that Musk and the Republican Party need each other. Musk is highly dependent on the federal government for the continued financial success of his rocket company SpaceX. And top Republican officeholders and influencers will continue to hunger for his dollars and social media clout, even if he says he is pulling back from political contributions. That explains why Vance and other Trump allies were so muted in their initial statements when the Trump–Musk feud exploded last week.
Trump responded with a threat to cut SpaceX’s federal contracts — which would be a real blow to Musk. Between January 2023 and December 2024, SpaceX’s valuation rose from $137 billion to an astonishing $350 billion. This increase was based on the assumption that the company would benefit dramatically from Musk’s relationship with Trump. But if the opposite proves true, SpaceX’s value will likely collapse back down to Earth, dragging Musk and his other investors down with it.
No wonder Musk was so quick to back down from his fight with Trump, going so far as to delete his post linking Trump to notorious sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and showing rare contrition on Wednesday on his social media platform X. “I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week,” he wrote. “They went too far.”
The news that the Pentagon and NASA were trying to drop SpaceX was a reminder that Musk has too much at stake. And with Tesla now struggling, don’t be surprised to see Musk make the same moves as others who depend on government funding and friendly regulatory policies: hiring lobbyists, making campaign contributions, and currying favor with politicians.
Meanwhile, Republican politicians, influencers, and operators also have strong reasons to stay in Musk’s orbit. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and a whole host of conservatives are all carefully jockeying to be on the next presidential ticket. They will certainly want Trump’s political endorsement — and if Musk proves willing to keep spending, his financial backing. In addition, some Republicans want him to stay in politics because they agree with his criticism of Trump’s debt-expanding “Big Beautiful Bill.” Conservative Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., a deficit hawk and public advocate for cutting even U.S. military funding to Israel, tweeted praise of Musk, saying that “he cares about this country.”
That’s why Musk and elected Republicans are likely to remain bound together in the years ahead. This means that Musk’s oligarchic ambitions, his anti-social welfare policies, and his white nationalist beliefs will continue to influence the Republican Party and American politics for decades to come.
So people concerned about the future of this country must continue holding Musk accountable and keep fighting to block his political power. We must build a firewall around his politics. That means ending taxpayer funding for all of Musk’s enterprises — including Tesla, SpaceX, and its satellite internet business Starlink. It also means sending a signal to Musk, other oligarchs, and the politicians who flirt with them that doing so puts their own commercial and political interests at risk.
There’s much to learn from the Tesla Takedown movement that erupted across the U.S. and Europe. That movement is now quietly entering a new phase of activism and power. Under the guidance of skilled organizers like Alec Connon of Stop the Money Pipeline and some of the original Tesla Takedown leaders, a broad network of community activists is launching city-, county-, and state-level campaigns for government boycotts of Musk’s companies. They are pushing local governments to halt purchases of Tesla vehicles and encouraging local and state public pension funds to divest from Tesla stock.
A recent victory in this campaign came when the trustees of Pennsylvania’s Lehigh County pension fund — worth roughly $500 million — voted to stop purchasing new investments in Tesla stock. In the words of elected Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley, “I have a legal duty to act as a responsible steward of the retirement savings of 4,218 county retirees and employees.”
According to national campaign organizer Connon, anti-Tesla lobbying and organizing efforts have picked up momentum in Philadelphia, Seattle, Madison, Portland, and cities across the San Francisco Bay Area. And more local organizing efforts are being launched. As Connon put it, “There’s an incredibly vibrant network of volunteer leaders across the country who are committed to holding Elon Musk accountable for his vicious attacks on democracy. They are pushing hard to ensure that their local and state governments are not funding the companies owned by this man who has caused so much harm.”
Philadelphia community member Kelley Collings is another inspiring example of this rising movement. She and other Tesla Takedown activists have formed a local organizing committee and begun lobbying city council members and the city pension board to divest from Tesla. As fellow community member Anne Krawitz wrote, their goal is “to halt all current and future investments in Tesla stocks, with the hope of creating momentum for divestment of statewide retirement plans.” Toward this end, they have also started building a statewide campaign by organizing rank-and-file union members who have pensions in both the city and state pension funds.
But while local activists and organizers are working to break Musk’s financial power, some Democrats are hoping Musk will choose to share his wealth with the Democratic Party. Before his MAGA embrace, Musk once made campaign contributions to elected officials including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Gavin Newsom, as well as Rubio, Lindsey Graham, and Kevin McCarthy. Perhaps that’s why Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., has called for “trying to convince [Musk] that the Democratic Party has more of the values that he agrees with,” including “a commitment to science funding, a commitment to clean technology, a commitment to seeing international students like him.” But such an approach requires overlooking Musk’s ghastly politics, his support for far-right political movements in Germany and elsewhere, and his unconstitutional slash-and-burn attacks on the federal government, including the very programs that enable the science funding and clean technology that Khanna spoke of.
Taking Musk’s dollars would prevent the Democratic Party from learning how to punch up and go after the oligarchs who are ruining our country.
The simple reality is that taking Musk’s dollars would undermine the Democratic Party’s competitiveness, because it would prevent the Democratic Party from learning how to punch up and go after the oligarchs who are ruining our country. It would continue the Democratic Party’s failed trend of being unable to tell a story as to who’s responsible for the woes of American voters, a vacuum that Trump has quickly filled with his own poisonous narrative. And it would show, once again, that the party cares more about chasing donors’ dollars than anything else.
We don’t want Elon Musk to have any power to advance any of his destructive political goals. That’s why the local campaigns to boycott and divest from Tesla are so important. It’s also why the time has come to push Congress to cut off federal contracts for SpaceX.
Ultimately, this is what fighting fascism looks like. Our work is to push the oligarchs out of Washington and to break up their wealth. That battle starts with Musk.
