- Elon Musk slammed the dollar on social media, calling it and other fiat money “hopeless.” His America Party will embrace crypto, he says. That could set up another area of contention with Donald Trump, who was his political ally for many months before and after the November election.
Elon Musk wants his political third party to stand apart from the establishment—and he’s leaning into cryptocurrency to do so.
Replying to a tweet that questions the America Party’s stance on cryptocurrency, Musk gave a brief answer that indicated his lack of faith in the U.S. Dollar.
“Will America Party embrace Bitcoin?,” the user asked. Musk replied: “Fiat is hopeless, so yes.”
Fiat is a government-issued currency that’s not backed by gold or silver and derives its value from public trust. (The Euro, British pound, and others are also fiat.) The dollar became fiat in 1971, when President Richard Nixon suspended the dollar’s convertibility into gold.
By declaring it hopeless, Musk is aligning himself and the America Party with many of crypto’s most avid backers, who view digital currency as a balance against federal monetary policies. Exactly how he plans to incorporate it into the political party’s platform, of course, remains to be seen.
While Musk has been vocal about his opposition to the Trump budget bill and has railed against increasing the national debt, he has not yet lined out any of the America Party’s political agenda.
Musk’s embrace of cryptocurrency is nothing new, of course. His endorsement of Dogecoin four years ago caused that memecoin to see a tremendous surge in value. (Musk also was responsible for the coin’s collapse in value, when he trashed it while hosting Saturday Night Live.)
The embrace of Bitcoin by the American Party could also be yet another thumbing of the nose to Trump, who has been positioning himself as “America’s ‘first crypto president.'”