Mark Cuban seems to endorse Elon Musk's idea of a new political party

ThatRobGuy · Jun 6, 2025

Mark Cuban seems to endorse Elon Musk's idea of a new political party

Mark Cuban appeared to like Elon Musk's proposal for a new political party for "the middle" amid the Tesla CEO's fallout with President Donald Trump.

www.businessinsider.com

The former "Shark Tank" star and Cost Plus Drugs founder has previously expressed his dismay with both political parties. He once described himself as "socially centrist" while "very fiscally conservative."

The IbanezerScrooge · Jun 6, 2025

Sure. Go for it. But let's not pretend this is some fresh new idea. Third parties already exist. What? You've never heard of them? Yeah there's a reason for that. Until we change our election process to ranked choice or something similar it won't go anywhere. It will always be dominated by 2 parties. third parties are a waste of time and votes in our current system.

Maria Billingsley · Jun 6, 2025

ThatRobGuy said:
Mark Cuban seems to endorse Elon Musk's idea of a new political party

Mark Cuban appeared to like Elon Musk's proposal for a new political party for "the middle" amid the Tesla CEO's fallout with President Donald Trump.

www.businessinsider.com

View attachment 365974

The former "Shark Tank" star and Cost Plus Drugs founder has previously expressed his dismay with both political parties. He once described himself as "socially centrist" while "very fiscally conservative."

.

ThatRobGuy · Jun 6, 2025

The IbanezerScrooge said:
Sure. Go for it. But let's not pretend this is some fresh new idea. Third parties already exist. What? You've never heard of them? Yeah there's a reason for that. Until we change our election process to ranked choice or something similar it won't go anywhere. It will always be dominated by 2 parties. third parties are a waste of time and votes in our current system.

Well, I would venture a guess and say that two guys with a combined net worth of over $300B could change that dynamic just a bit.

It's fair to point out that one of the major things holding back the greens and libertarians is the fact that they can't afford to saturate the market and advertise and get their name out there the same way as the 2 big parties.

It's also worth noting that the last time a 3rd party candidate was somewhat viable and actually managed to get on the debate stage and rack up a large number of votes, was Ross Perot from the reform party...and that's because he was a billionaire who could afford to compete.

Perot was worth 4 Billion, and spent 60 million of his own money "getting in the game" and was able to get 20% of the popular vote... and that's Ross Perot, not particularly charismatic...and a virtual unknown prior to hopping in. (and that doesn't even factor in PR disaster that was his running mate Stockdale...who was a nice guy, but was certainly not a good public speaker)

Musk & Cuban could easily provide the type of financing required to get a candidate out in the forefront on an on people's minds. And that's half the battle.

There are built-in funding mechanisms for the R's and D's that aren't accessible to the third-parties, and that keep them out of the game. Having billionaire backers could close that gap.

bèlla · Jun 6, 2025

Now we’ll have three liars instead of two. That’s progress I suppose.

~bella

The IbanezerScrooge · Jun 6, 2025

ThatRobGuy said:
Well, I would venture a guess and say that two guys with a combined net worth of over $300B could change that dynamic just a bit.

First thing's first. Let's not be under the delusion that Cuban is in Musk's corner. Those guys aren't starting a political party together. Just because Cuban agrees that we should have more viable parties than just Reps and Dems doesn't mean they're suddenly pals.

(In the same vein, just because Dems agree with the criticisms that Musk is leveling at Trump right now, ones that the left has been saying all along, doesn't mean they're now suddenly supporting Musk and all he stands for. Dude's still a racist Nazi.)

ThatRobGuy said:
It's fair to point out that one of the major things holding back the greens and libertarians is the fact that they can't afford to saturate the market and advertise and get their name out there the same way as the 2 big parties.

It's also worth noting that the last time a 3rd party candidate was somewhat viable and actually managed to get on the debate stage and rack up a large number of votes, was Ross Perot from the reform party...and that's because he was a billionaire who could afford to compete.

Perot was worth 4 Billion, and spent 60 million of his own money "getting in the game" and was able to get 20% of the popular vote... Musk & Cuban could easily provide the type of financing required to get a candidate out in the forefront on an on people's minds. And that's half the battle.

There are built-in funding mechanisms for the R's and D's that aren't accessible to the third-parties, and that keep them out of the game. Having billionaire backers could close that gap.

I really feel like if forming a party and buying their way into power actually worked they would have done it already. Or why not just dump billions into the Greens or Libertarians or whoever else. I don't think it will work out in the current system.

ThatRobGuy · Jun 6, 2025

The IbanezerScrooge said:
I really feel like if forming a party and buying their way into power actually worked they would have done it already. Or why not just dump billions into the Greens or Libertarians or whoever else. I don't think it will work out in the current system.

It takes a certain kind of "personality quirks" for someone to invest the kind of money it takes to do that.

Most billionaires became billionaires specifically because they were somewhat cautious with their money.

Musk seems to be the kind a guy who's willing to spend exorbitant sums for the purpose of "proving a point"

durangodawood · Jun 6, 2025

We should have more viable parties.

But thats not the way our system works.

Richard T · Jun 6, 2025

Third parties of the past often tried to do too much. One strategy to help independents is to focus at the regional, not nationwide level. Imagine if Texas always voted in independents that were unified. If this occurred they could control the majority in the House. Nothing could be done without their votes. If they did this for their own Presidential candidate it likely too would mean that the House of Representatives would decide a Presidential election.

ThatRobGuy · Jun 6, 2025

Richard T said:
Third parties of the past often tried to do too much. One strategy to help independents is to focus at the regional, not nationwide level. Imagine if Texas always voted in independents that were unified. If this occurred they could control the majority in the House. Nothing could be done without their votes. If they did this for their own Presidential candidate it likely too would mean that the House of Representatives would decide a Presidential election.

The only reason they have that limitation is due to funding mechanisms that are rigged.

For instance, a presidential candidate for a party that got 25% of the vote in the previous election cycle is automatically eligible for a multi-million dollar funding grant for their campaign. For the 2024 election, the grant amount was $123 million

Public funding of presidential elections - FEC.gov

How the Federal Election Commission administers the laws regarding the public funding of presidential elections, including the primary matching funds process for eligible candidates for President, the general election grants to nominees, and mandatory audits of public funding recipients...

www.fec.gov

I made reference to him earlier... Ross Perot.

He went from a complete unknown in the political world, to actually getting on the debate stage for the presidential elections running for the Reform Party, and getting 20% of the popular vote. How he did that? Simple... he had his own money and could afford to buy all of the things that the major candidates get handed to them. He wasn't particularly charismatic, and his VP choice was a disaster on-screen.

Long story short, someone with "Musk Money" could easily sponsor a 3rd party candidate in ways that would close the "advantage gap".

Ross Perot was able to close the gap with $60 million in 1990's dollars (roughly $140M in today's dollars)

Musk was willing to dump billions into buying a social media platform to "prove a point"... you think he would balk at dropping $200M to give a middle finger to the two establishment parties?

Not to mention the fact that dissatisfaction with the 2 establishment parties is at an all-time high right now. Ross Perot was able to "buy his way to the big boy table" during a time when that wasn't as much the case. Bill Clinton and George HW Bush weren't hated like today's candidates are hated.

Richard T · Jun 6, 2025

I thought the major parties for President were foregoing public funding now? Too many restrictions which they have less of when the avoid the public funding. But, yes, Musk and Cuban could fund anyone, I suppose at the nationwide level even. It might still be hard to win a majority of Electoral College Votes if deep blue states voted dem, the deep red voted GOP, and the moderate states voted for the alternative. Anyway, challenging is good. Musk is right on this Bill.

ThatRobGuy · Jun 6, 2025

Richard T said:
I thought the major parties for President were foregoing public funding now? Too many restrictions which they have less of when the avoid the public funding. But, yes, Musk and Cuban could fund anyone, I suppose at the nationwide level even. It might still be hard to win a majority of Electoral College Votes if deep blue states voted dem, the deep red voted GOP, and the moderate states voted for the alternative. Anyway, challenging is good. Musk is right on this Bill.

Half the battle it just getting a candidate on the debate stage.

On paper, the Johnson/Weld Libertarian ticket in 2016 was superior to the Perot/Stockdale ticket in the 90's.

While Johnson/Weld only got about 4% of the vote (which is still considered "solid" by third-party standards)
Perot got 20%

The difference was funding and exposure

Johnson/Weld's mainstream exposure was basically limited to a single CNN Libertarian town hall (despite both of them being popular multi-term former Republican governors in blue states -- indicating at least some level of crossover appeal)

Perot was able to throw large sums at getting his name out there, buying tons of ads...and had the money where he bought entire 30-minute blocks of airtime, on major networks, during prime time -- not cheap.

Some political analysts attribute his unprecedented success for a third party to that aspect alone.

He strategically bought the 30-minute timeslots right after other popular shows.

You can imagine... he was coming on TV right after Monday Night Football on one network, and coming on right after Frasier on another. That was some serious exposure.

Now, to put it in perspective, Musk's funds dwarfs that of Perot, and he owns a social media outlet in addition to the other media levers he can pull that far exceed the reach capability of what Perot did...and he's already demonstrated that he has no qualms with throwing absolutely insane sums and endeavors to prove a point.

In theory, there would be nothing stopping him from buying media timeslots like that, and in addition...he could just as easily have the algorithm manipulated to make sure his new party candidate's stuff shows up on everyone's feeds, and deprioritize the R's and D's.

I sincerely don't think people are taking Musk's "I'm going to start a whole new party" thing as seriously as they should.

And perhaps I'm drifting into the realm of "Fan Fiction" here based on what I think an interesting story would be.

Gavin Newsom has been racing towards the center lately (obviously gearing up for a run). Gavin is a shrewd politician who knows the game and knows that money = increased chances of winning.

Elon approaches Gavin "I'll give you 400 million if you run for my new party, and X is basically your playground...have at it -- Bash Trump as much as you can, and toss some EV subsidies into your platform and that'll help me and appeal to the environmentalists"

We've already seen weirder things happen lol

Desk trauma · Jun 7, 2025

Perot part deux.

Hans Blaster · Jun 7, 2025

Desk trauma said:
Perot part deux.

Maybe they can call it the "Equivocation Party" -- the party for those who say they don't like Trump and extremist Republicans but vote for them anyway because they keep finding excuses to not vote for the Dems.

JSRG · Jun 7, 2025

ThatRobGuy said:
Half the battle it just getting a candidate on the debate stage.

On paper, the Johnson/Weld Libertarian ticket in 2016 was superior to the Perot/Stockdale ticket in the 90's.

While Johnson/Weld only got about 4% of the vote (which is still considered "solid" by third-party standards)
Perot got 20%

The difference was funding and exposure

Johnson/Weld's mainstream exposure was basically limited to a single CNN Libertarian town hall (despite both of them being popular multi-term former Republican governors in blue states -- indicating at least some level of crossover appeal)

Perot was able to throw large sums at getting his name out there, buying tons of ads...and had the money where he bought entire 30-minute blocks of airtime, on major networks, during prime time -- not cheap.

Some political analysts attribute his unprecedented success for a third party to that aspect alone.

He strategically bought the 30-minute timeslots right after other popular shows.

You can imagine... he was coming on TV right after Monday Night Football on one network, and coming on right after Frasier on another. That was some serious exposure.

Now, to put it in perspective, Musk's funds dwarfs that of Perot, and he owns a social media outlet in addition to the other media levers he can pull that far exceed the reach capability of what Perot did...and he's already demonstrated that he has no qualms with throwing absolutely insane sums and endeavors to prove a point.

In theory, there would be nothing stopping him from buying media timeslots like that, and in addition...he could just as easily have the algorithm manipulated to make sure his new party candidate's stuff shows up on everyone's feeds, and deprioritize the R's and D's.

I sincerely don't think people are taking Musk's "I'm going to start a whole new party" thing as seriously as they should.

And perhaps I'm drifting into the realm of "Fan Fiction" here based on what I think an interesting story would be.

Gavin Newsom has been racing towards the center lately (obviously gearing up for a run). Gavin is a shrewd politician who knows the game and knows that money = increased chances of winning.

Elon approaches Gavin "I'll give you 400 million if you run for my new party, and X is basically your playground...have at it -- Bash Trump as much as you can, and toss some EV subsidies into your platform and that'll help me and appeal to the environmentalists"

We've already seen weirder things happen lol

The problem with the idea of Elon Musk starting a party is the fact that to have any real chance of competing against Democrats and Republicans, you need at least one of the following to happen:
1) Change the electoral processes to avoid the problem of vote splitting (ranked choice voting, approval voting, France's multi-round voting, or proportional representation)
2) Take votes equally from Republicans and Democrats

Debate continues to this day as to what effect if any Ross Perot had on the winner of the presidential race, but it at least looks to me like he didn't disproportionately hurt either candidate (he may have hurt one more than the other, but it doesn't seem like it was by a big amount). You have to do that, or else you just split the vote and the other guy wins, like what happened with Theodore Roosevelt's third party attempt (Roosevelt chose not to run for a third term, but disliked the presidency of Taft--who was actually his vice president--enough that he ran as a third party candidate when Taft ran for re-election, which gave Woodrow Wilson an easy victory) This is a problem the Green Party continually faces.

It looks to me like the only third parties that could manage that are the Libertarian Party (fiscally conservative, socially liberal) and the American Solidarity Party (fiscally liberal, socially conservative). Everyone else just would take things disproportionately from one party. These, to be fair, could possibly get more of the vote if they had money behind them. What I've seen of Mark Cuban's political views make him look like he'd align decently with the libertarians, but I don't know if he'd go for it.

Elon Musk has the problem that he really can't take votes from both parties because he's associated himself so much with the conservatives now. Honestly, if he was serious on this, he'd be trying to back politicians who favor changing to the voting system that would make it so Democrats and Republicans don't have such control.

That's of course assuming he is serious, rather than just throwing out an idea that he could easily just forget about within a week.

ThatRobGuy · Jun 7, 2025

JSRG said:
The problem with the idea of Elon Musk starting a party is the fact that to have any real chance of competing against Democrats and Republicans, you need at least one of the following to happen:
1) Change the electoral processes to avoid the problem of vote splitting (ranked choice voting, approval voting, France's multi-round voting, or proportional representation)
2) Take votes equally from Republicans and Democrats

I think number 2 could actually happen depending on who he picked.

I get all of the reasons you mentioned (pertaining to him being heavily associated with conservatives)

But that can all change in a matter of a few years.

Voters have short-term memories.

He was still something of a "darling of the left" who was seen as making strides on electric vehicles, and re-tweeting Greta Thunberg only a few short years back.

Obviously people forgot all about that pretty quick when he started aligning with Trump.

I haven't really seen any solid evidence that voter attention spans have gotten dramatically longer in the last few years.

Case in point, look at how much people on the left hated Mitt Romney and George W. Bush... (In Bush's case, the college protestors were out there with signs depicting him with a Hitler mustache and claiming he was the most evil war monger in the nation's history)

Both of them didn't change their stances on issues one bit after exiting the "presidential election realm"

All they did was make some critical statements about Trump.

Per Gallup: 61% of Democrats held a favorable view of Romney as late 2020
Per Politico/Gallup: 52% of Democrats held a favorable view of Bush as 2023

Now, one could make a case those views are somewhat the result of a "comparative" lens (IE: "Gee, Romney's actually not looking so bad now compared to what we're stuck with")

Mark Cuban seems to endorse Elon Musk's idea of a new political party

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