Musk wants to create a third party. It won't be so easy.

Here are five challenges Musk will face in creating the aspirational “America Party,” according to leaders of third parties and the operatives who have worked for them.

Getting on the ballot is, by far, the biggest hurdle that experts identified.

Third parties have to navigate a set of complex laws, each of which differ by state, to simply obtain a place on the ballot. Then they have to work to keep it. The process entails amassing a large number of signatures from voters who back your party in a short amount of time — and, to make matters more complicated, some deadlines overlap in different states.

“Stepping in as a third party is difficult and it’s not just difficult due to name recognition and everything else. It’s mostly due to ballot access,” said Steven Nekhaila, chair of the Libertarian National Committee. “Ballot access is something that takes decades to accrue because you need the state party infrastructure to facilitate it, you need to get tens of thousands of signatures to meet the thresholds, and oftentimes you only have a few months to do it.”

Musk is going to get sued and sued some more.

Larry Otter, an election law attorney who advised Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 campaign, said Musk’s party will “definitely be viewed as a spoiler” by Republicans and that they will work hard to prevent him from winning a line on the ballot.

Musk should be prepared to have the signatures his team collects challenged to the hilt, Otter said. Looking at just one state, Pennsylvania, he said, there is typically a “30 percent error rate” there in petitions for ballot access.

Recruiting candidates and building party infrastructure takes time.

As the richest man in the world, Musk could easily fund a wide-ranging party operation in 50 states. But will he stay interested in his new cause for long enough to see it through?

“The greatest challenge for him is not money but finding petitioners, finding people and fighting lawsuits,” Nekhaila said. “It’s more time that’s going to be a precious resource than money.”

Musk has floated the possibility of initially zeroing in on “just 2 or 3 Senate seats” and “8 to 10 House districts” in the 2026 midterm elections. Narrowing his focus would make it a “totally different strategy,” and more doable, Nekhaila said.

Few experts are familiar with starting a new party — and some less-than-professional characters abound in the third-party strategist world.

“One of the things that independents rely on are professional circulators,” said Otter, referring to operatives who are paid to collect signatures. “I’ve seen stuff go really bad with those people.”

Sometimes, circulating companies bring in inexperienced workers and people from out of state who are unfamiliar with local laws, he said.

And then there’s Musk.

First Musk torched his reputation with Democratic (and Tesla-buying) voters. Now that he’s feuding with Trump, he’s frustrating many in the GOP.

Will candidates want to associate themselves with his party? Will staff — especially those who want to stay involved in the Republican Party? Musk could keep a distance by funding independent candidates through a super PAC, but does he have the discipline to not get personally involved?

Like this content? Consider signing up for POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook: Remaking Government newsletter.