This piece originally appeared in The Trentonian on July 29, 2025.

Elon Musk has pioneered reusable rocket technology, built Tesla into a dominant force in electric vehicles, and revolutionized global satellite internet services.

But his latest idea—forming a new political party—may be far more challenging.

Musk has discussed creating the “America Party” as an alternative to what he calls the “uniparty” of Democrats and Republicans. However, campaign finance laws transform this already monumental political task into a nightmare.

These rules create such severe barriers to fundraising and infrastructure development that starting a new party has become all but illegal. Among other difficulties, the laws bar anyone who wants to start a new party from providing the millions in political venture capital needed to finance such a startup. And anyone violating these complex rules could wind up in jail.

Such restrictions are a recent development. The first of these laws didn’t take effect until the 1970s. After Ross Perot’s Reform Party had some success in the 1990s, garnering 8.4 percent of the presidential vote in 1996 and electing a governor in 1998, the law was amended in 2002, making the already Herculean task of starting a new party much more difficult. There are good arguments that many—if not all—of these party-blocking measures are unconstitutional, but fighting the laws in court is expensive and can take years.

The rules limit contributions from any one individual to a nascent political party to $5,000 per year. This limit makes it effectively impossible to raise the necessary funds to compete with established parties that have decades of donor networks and infrastructure, such as buildings, ballot access, and voter registration lists, already in place. Meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans can each scoop up as much as $443,000 annually from a single contributor.

The case of Unity08 illustrates how this licensing scheme chills political organizing. Unity08 was a non-profit organization that wanted to facilitate an online nominating process for president and vice president prior to the 2008 election. However, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) told the group that it would be limited to the $5000 contribution limit and subject to a complicated regulatory regime while it tried to get off the ground.

The organization had to fight through federal courts just to establish its right to exist without facing inappropriate regulation. After years of costly litigation, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in 2010 that Unity08 couldn’t be regulated as a political committee until it selected a “clearly identified” candidate. By then, the group had to change its name to “Unity2012.”

During the legal battle, opponents—mainly the two major parties—accused the group of breaking the law, making it even harder for Unity08 to raise money. The No Labels group faced similar problems when it tried to launch in 2024.

Beyond the strict limits on contributions, the actual process to become a national political party is painfully complex. It’s essentially a government licensing scheme for a new political party, which is an affront to the First Amendment command that “Congress shall make no law” limiting speech.

Before a new party can effectively operate as a party, the FEC requires it to demonstrate “sufficient national-level activity,” including ballot access extending beyond presidential races to congressional contests, ongoing voter registration drives, national publicity of party positions, and establishment of state committees.

It’s a Catch-22: a group can’t raise the money needed to act like a national party without getting government approval, and it can’t get government approval until it acts like a national party.

Even if the America Party could jump the regulatory hurdles, there’s another problem. The nominally six-member FEC currently lacks the four-member minimum vote needed to give permission. Three seats on the Commission are vacant, and the Administration has not yet sent nominations for those vacant seats to the Senate for confirmation.

The numerous obstacles Musk faces highlight campaign finance law’s intrinsic flaw: treating core political speech as a privilege requiring government permission rather than a fundamental First Amendment right essential to a healthy democracy.

The ability to start a new political party is critical to freedom and democracy. Yet our campaign finance laws make this vital endeavor nearly unworkable, even for someone with unparalleled financial assets and celebrity. If Elon Musk, with all his wealth and legal resources, struggles to form a political party, what hope do the rest of us have?

Campaign finance regulations have created a system where one of the most regulated activities in America is political speech itself. That neither honors the text of the First Amendment nor protects democracy.