Elon Musk Weighs In as Arnold Schwarzenegger Calls Out States With Zero Republican Representatives
Arnold Schwarzenegger says gerrymandering has locked Republicans out of representation in some states — and Elon Musk is backing him. In a CNN exchange with Jake Tapper, the former California governor blasted extreme map-rigging and urged an end to gaming the system.
Arnold Schwarzenegger went on CNN and did what he does: swung at a big target and didn’t duck the blowback. This time it was gerrymandering, and he wasn’t just pointing at Republicans. He called out blue states where GOP voters get shut out entirely, then Elon Musk boosted the clip with a dry one-liner. And yes, this is the same Arnold who endorsed Kamala Harris last cycle while still calling himself a Republican. So, yeah, it’s that kind of story.
What Arnold said on CNN
On Jake Tapper’s show, Tapper asked if the current Republican Party basically kicked off today’s era of extreme gerrymandering. Schwarzenegger, now the star of Netflix’s FUBAR but still very much a politics guy, pushed back on the premise. His point: this has been around forever and both parties do it. He put a number on it: roughly 200 years.
Then he reached for examples that are going to spark arguments. He said that in Massachusetts, about 40% of voters backed Donald Trump, yet Republicans have zero seats in the U.S. House from the state. He added that New Mexico is similar in his view: around 45% for Trump, no Republican representatives. He was clearly aiming at deep-blue maps that leave Republicans with no federal House presence despite a sizable vote share.
Musk chimes in
Elon Musk reposted the clip on X and gave it the minimalist stamp of approval on October 27, 2025: "Zero is a low number." Short, snarky, and exactly the kind of amplification that makes a cable hit travel.
This isn’t new territory for Schwarzenegger
Schwarzenegger’s been campaigning against partisan line-drawing for years. Back in 2017, talking to the San Francisco Chronicle, he argued the playing field shouldn’t favor either party and pointed to a fix he helped push through in California: Proposition 11. That measure created the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, a nonpartisan group that draws the lines for state legislative districts. Most other states still let their legislatures handle redistricting, which is exactly how partisan maps happen.
"Gerrymandering has created an absurd reality where politicians pick their voters instead of the voters picking their politicians."
Those comments landed during a broader fight at the time, when plaintiffs in Wisconsin were accusing the GOP-controlled legislature of an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. In other words: he’s been on this beat for a while.
His GOP card is real, his Trump criticism is louder
If you’re wondering how a lifelong Republican is out here endorsing Democrats and bashing GOP maps, this is also very Arnold. Before the 2024 election, he posted a long message calling a potential Trump presidency "four more years of bullsh*t with no results" and flat-out labeling Trump "un-American." He endorsed Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, with the line: "I will always be an American before I am a Republican."
He also said he doesn’t like either party much, dropping: "I hate politics and don’t trust most politicians," and that serving in office taught him to "love policy and ignore politics." He knocked his own party for forgetting free-market principles, running up deficits, and rejecting election results, and he hit Democrats for not being better on deficits and for local policies he believes contribute to more crime.
Then in August 2025, he went after Trump again after a press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling the performance "embarrassing" and saying Trump stood there like "a little fanboy," even joking about Trump asking for a selfie. He went further, accusing him of selling out America’s intelligence community, the justice system, and the country as a whole: "You’re the president of the United States. You shouldn’t do that. And what’s the matter with you?"
The bigger picture
Schwarzenegger has been a registered Republican for decades. He stumped with then–Vice President George H.W. Bush in the 1988 campaign. He jumped into the 2003 California recall and ended up serving as governor from 2003 to 2011. So when he talks about gerrymandering, he’s not a drive-by commenter; he’s been trying to rewire how maps get made, at least in California, for years.
Bottom line
Arnold’s CNN point was simple enough: gerrymandering is old, it’s everywhere, and it can erase entire blocs of voters, whether they’re blue or red. Musk’s "Zero is a low number" quip only underlined the part of the argument meant to sting. If you’re keeping score, this is consistent with where Schwarzenegger’s been for a while: still a Republican, loudly anti-Trump, and very into independent map-drawing.