Musk Taps Tesla’s Indian CFO as ‘America Party’ Treasurer.

WHAT HAPPENED: Elon Musk has tapped the India-born Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Tesla, Vaibhav Taneja, to serve as the treasurer of his new third-party group, the America Party.

WHO WAS INVOLVED: Elon Musk and Vaibhav Taneja.

WHEN & WHERE: News of the Tesla CFO’s new role was made over the July 4, 2025, weekend.

IMPACT: The launch of the America Party and Taneja’s role as treasurer has renewed the December 2024 fight between Musk and supporters of President Donald J. Trump over the former’s aggressive support for expanding H1-B visas, allowing the importation of cheap foreign labor.

Tesla CEO and former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) frontman Elon Musk has tapped his struggling electric vehicle company’s chief financial officer (CFO), Vaibhav Taneja, to serve as the treasurer of the America Party. The move has revived criticism of Musk’s zealous support for replacing American workers with cheap foreign labor through H1B visas.

The move is also seeing renewed allegations of Musk and his associates being “broligarchs”—a term popularized by former Trump White House Chief Strategist and WarRoom host Stephen K. Bannon—as PACs and political parties typically employ experienced campaign finance experts as treasurers and avoid hiring personal company employees so as to avoid potential conflicts of interest.

The new America Party’s treasurer, Vaibhav Taneja, has served as Tesla’s CFO since 2023. Notably, Taneja was born and educated in India, receiving a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Delhi University in 1999 and a qualified chartered accountancy from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India in 2000. From 1999 until 2016, Taneja appears to have worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in India, moving on to Solar City in 2016. A year later, Taneja became part of Tesla’s India operations after Solar City was acquired by Musk’s company, and in 2023, he ascended to the role of Tesla’s CFO.

On social media, the revelation that an Indian is serving as a leader in the America Party has drawn significant backlash. Musk, himself a South African immigrant, drew similar criticism in December 2024 over his aggressive support for the importation of cheap foreign labor. In a series of posts, Musk disparaged American workers, called for an unprecedented expansion in foreign work visas, and threatened that he would be unrelenting in his push to expand the number of foreign workers in America.

While Musk was eventually forced to walk back his comments—especially after it was pointed out that his own visa status was questionable before he attained U.S. citizenship—the billionaire tech mogul has continued to quietly advocate for increased foreign workers.

Meanwhile, Taneja’s role as CFO is also raising renewed allegations of “broligarchy.” The term refers to a tight-knit cadre of Silicon Valley technology billionaires who have attempted to gain political influence to consolidate their market dominance and access to foreign imports and cheap foreign labor.

Taneja, as the CFO of Tesla, has one of the highest compensations of any chief executive in the country. Notably, after incentives, Taneja’s salary of $139 million in 2024 far exceeded the salaries of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Having someone with such close financial and personal ties to Musk serve as the treasurer of Musk’s America Party could raise ethics concerns.

Whether Taneja is well enough versed in U.S. campaign finance law to perform his role, or capable of standing up to Musk, is unclear. Regardless, the fact that Musk installed Taneja as the America Party’s treasurer—given the plethora of potential ethical conflicts—will raise alarm bells.

Image by Gage Skidmore.

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