'Whack-a-mole': Fraudsters rush to beat Musk to his own idea

Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and President Donald Trump’s friend turned foe, has not yet officially established the “America Party,” the idea for which he announced this weekend.

But a number of jokers, wags and potential fraudsters have rushed to fill that vacuum, filing paperwork with federal regulators claiming the America Party mantle — and prompting officials at the Federal Election Commission to fire off a volley of legal warnings.

So far, at least 10 separate political committees bearing some variation of the “America Party” name have been registered with the FEC since Musk’s announcement, an OpenSecrets review of federal records indicates.

Several more, such as “The DOGE Party” and an “Elon Reeve Musk” congressional committee in Texas, play on Musk’s name or history.

“It has come to the attention of the Federal Election Commission that you may have failed to include the true, correct, or complete committee information,” FEC Senior Campaign Finance Analyst Jacqueline Gausepohl wrote to “The American Party (TAP)” on Monday.

“The America Party (TAP),” which filed organizational paperwork on Sunday, purports to be based in Hawthorne, Calif., where Musk’s Tesla company has a large facility. It lists its treasurer as Vaibhav Taneja — chief financial officer of the automobile and solar company.

Gausepohl added that “knowingly and willfully making any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent” statements or representations to a federal agency is against federal law, and the FEC reserves the right to “report apparent violations to the appropriate law enforcement authorities.”

The other questionable Musk-themed parties, including “The America Party Committee,” “US American Party” and “American Meme Party,” received similar FEC letters this week.

FEC staffers have found themselves “playing Whack-a-Mole shutting down putative America Party committees registered by over-eager Musk supporters, pranksters, and perhaps a few scammers,” said Brett Kappel, an election law attorney with Harmon Curran. “The FEC correctly informed the filers that submitting a false statement to the commission is a felony.”

Kappel also noted that the one filer using Taneja’s name “may also be prosecuted under a separate federal identity theft statute.”

While the FEC is indeed talking tough, the agency also finds itself in the midst of a de facto shutdown.

Only three of six commissioners at the independent, bipartisan agency remain on the job, and it needs four commissioners in place to conduct high-level business, such as formalizing investigations or issuing civil penalties. Congressional leaders have sent the White House the names of potential commissioners, but President Trump has yet to nominate anyone.

Processing campaign finance and committee paperwork and writing strongly worded warnings are among the limited number of actions the agency may take until Trump nominates, and the Senate confirms, new commissioners.

The Department of Justice could criminally pursue people propagating committee filing shenanigans, although such action is rare.

The FEC “declines to comment on specific filings,” spokesperson Myles Martin said. Representatives for Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“The America Party is needed to fight the Republican/Democrat Uniparty,” Musk posted to X on Sunday.

“I think it’s ridiculous to start a third party,” Trump told reporters later that day.

‘Deez Nuts’ effect

This spate of hinky, Musk-y political committees harkens back to the “Deez Nuts” phenomenon of 2015.

That year, 15-year-old Iowa high schooler Brady Olson formed a presidential campaign committee for his “Deez Nuts” alter ego, which North Carolina’s Public Policy Polling included in a survey.

“Deez Nuts” polled at 9 percent — and the FEC soon found itself inundated with hundreds of bogus political committee filings from cartoon characters, super heroes, the ghost of Ronald Reagan and, yes, plenty of body parts and sex acts.

At best, forming fake political committees can sow confusion.

For example, several websites and web influencers were sufficiently bamboozled this week by the rash of copycat America Party committees.

Quiver Quantitative — in a story republished by the NASDAQ stock market website — blasted out a story headlined, “Fundraising Update: Elon Musk Files With FEC to Launch ‘America Party’.”

Self-described “Tesla retail shareholder advocate” and “fangirl of Elon” Alexandra Merz, meanwhile, posted a screenshot of a fake “America Party” FEC filing on her X account feed, which boasts more than 194,000 followers.

This prompted Musk himself to respond Sunday from his official X account: “This filing is false and has been reported as such to the FEC.”

At worst, phoney documents filed with the FEC can adversely target people or organizations, including then-President Joe Biden during 2023.

In rare cases, individuals have been doxxed in official FEC documents, with the records remaining on an official, public government website for days. Others have been filled with racist invective.

The FEC revised its internal procedures several years ago to combat “filings containing possibly false or fictitious information,” but it hasn’t stopped such filings from coming.

Major party-building obstacles

Musk, meanwhile, faces other challenges if he’s serious about creating a new third party after his recent political break from Trump.

Since the Civil War, fueling and sustaining a successful third party in U.S. politics has proven notoriously difficult.

While examples of American third parties abound, many — such as the Progressive Party, Reform Party and American Independent Party — simply fizzled out.

Others, such as the Green Party and Libertarian Party, have long struggled for national relevance amid financial and ballot access obstacles and have managed few electoral victories at any level of government.

And while Musk may eventually choose to form a real America Party, complete with official FEC registration documents, that’s not all that’s required.

FEC party committee formation guidance states that a committee “should seek an FEC advisory opinion (AO) to verify that it has attained national committee status before taking advantage of the expanded contribution and expenditure limits that apply to a qualified national committee. The Commission will decide whether the committee or the party has demonstrated sufficient national-level activity to qualify.”

One problem: The FEC’s current lack of commissioners means it cannot, by law, issue advisory opinions, which are official legal recommendations of the agency. If Musk wanted to press forward with establishing the America Party in the absence of a fully functioning FEC, he could potentially seek relief in federal court.

Dave Levinthal is a Washington, D.C.-based investigative journalist. He served as OpenSecrets’ editorial and communications director from 2009 to 2011.

This article was originally published by OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that tracks money in politics. View the original article.