00:00Now moving on and Elon Musk is forming a new political party in the United States claiming a one-party system is currently in operation.
00:10Now the Tesla and SpaceX boss and former ally of Donald Trump posted that he was starting the America Party to give people back their freedom.
00:19Musk announced his latest project based on a 24-hour poll in which a majority backed the new party.
00:26All right well for more on this I'm joined by DW reporter Gassio Hannes who's been keeping a close eye on this.
00:36Great to have you in the studio Gassio.
00:38So why is Musk launching this party now?
00:41Is this like some type of escalation of some sort of his feud with President Trump?
00:48Well Pablo some people would say it's exactly that.
00:51I mean Musk has been vocally opposing the one big beautiful bill that as Trump calls it that Trump just passed and he has been threatening to take action and to form another political party if this happens and now this is the follow through of that in a way.
01:10Now we don't know if Musk has actually formed this party.
01:13He said that he's forming it but so far there is no actual record of this official record of this party.
01:19But it comes after a feud with President Trump that Musk has been having.
01:26And let's not forget Musk spent around $250 million supporting the Trump campaign in 2024.
01:34And then only for Trump to pass a bill that would cut a lot of funding to Musk's companies because it would cut energy support for clean energy like solar energy, wind energy and also electric vehicles.
01:51So this affects Musk quite personally as well.
01:55Of course with Tesla with those vehicles.
01:58So what impact could the America party as Musk is calling it actually have on the two party system even though Musk is actually saying that he's claiming it's a one party system, right?
02:09Right, Elon Musk has said that on his Twitter on X but the way it works in the US is so complicated in order to even get a party on the ballot.
02:22Every state has different rules for that.
02:25So there's a lot of hurdles when it comes to establishing another party and going to elections with that.
02:30And let's not forget Elon Musk was not born in the US so he can't himself run for presidency.
02:36He hasn't yet said who would lead this party.
02:38He hasn't really announced any plans.
02:41It's been a lot of ideas and not really like pragmatic, a pragmatic approach with, you know, what his vision is for this party and what he would do concretely.
02:51So we don't really know what his overall political vision is.
02:56We just know that he's raging against the two party system in the US and there have been attempts in the past, like in 1992, there was the reform party that managed to get around 19% of the general vote.
03:11But so far, no major party can break the two party system in the US.
03:17So let's talk about Musk because his own popularity has been dropping.
03:23But is he tapping into something?
03:25Is there an appetite in the US for another party to challenge the Democrats and the Republicans?
03:31There's a lot of growing dissatisfaction among the party voters themselves with their own parties.
03:37The parties have shifted a lot and their agendas have changed and there's not a lot of nuance in the two party system.
03:44Now, Musk is aware of this and he's even said he's trying to reach those, what he said, are 80% of voters that are dissatisfied.
03:53Now, we don't know the number.
03:54That's what Musk is claiming.
03:57But the truth is there is a lot of dissatisfaction.
03:59But in order to actually get those people, you need a clear agenda.
04:04You need a clear political program, which so far Musk has not really presented.
04:08So it's unclear, even though Musk has this strategy of reaching those people, it's unclear how he will get their support, especially given some of his conservative views that he's come out with.
04:21And a lot of his support base at the moment seems to be Republican men.
04:26Even his support among Republican women has dropped in the past year.
04:30So it's unclear how he's going to get the support of people, let's say, in the middle or even people among the Democratic Party that are not satisfied with the current party.
04:42Fascinating stuff, Gassia.
04:43And I get the sense we're going to be talking about this again many times.
04:48All right, we'll leave it there.
04:49But great to have that update on the latest.
04:52DW reporter, Gassia Johannes.
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