He was originally a member of the Danish Social Liberal Party, but left in September 2013 to launch The Alternative with Josephine Fock.

[4] Born in Ry, Denmark, Elbæk is the founder and former Principal of the KaosPilots International School of New Business Design and Social Innovation, located in Aarhus.

[6] In July 2010, Elbæk founded the consulting company Change The Game with focus on leadership training skills, political campaigning and social innovation concepts.

He resigned his minister position in December 2012 after criticism for holding five official gatherings at the organization AFUK - Akademiet For Utæmmet Kreativitet, where he previously held a chairman post, and where his husband was employed.

[7] On 27 November 2013, Uffe Elbæk hosted a press conference where he announced the formation of a new "green" political party named The Alternative.

[11] On 23 February Uffe Elbæk made use of Twitter to break the news that The Alternative had gathered enough signatures to become eligible to take part in the forthcoming parliamentary election.

[13][14] In addition to Uffe Elbæk, the members of the parliamentary group of The Alternative are Carolina Maier, Josephine Fock, Christian Poll, Torsten Gejl, Rasmus Nordqvist, Ulla Sandbæk, Roger Matthisen and René Gade.

[15] In March 2020, Elbæk along with Sikandar Siddique, Susanne Zimmer and Niko Grünfeld, left The Alternative after allegations that leader Josephine Fock had verbally abused members of the party.

[23] Elbæk later called for the Independent Greens and Alternative to merge,[24] and eventually rejoined the old party,[25] reducing the number of sitting FG MPs to two.