Steve Bannon spoke to UnHerd’s James Billot this week and brutally tore into Elon Musk, clearly trying to reignite the MAGA civil war between the Bannon-led base and the billionaire “tech bros” in President Donald Trump’s inner circle.
Bannon, a former Trump aide and campaign manager turned podcaster, told Billot that “Musk is a parasitic illegal immigrant.”
“He wants to impose his freak experiments and play-act as God without any respect for the country’s history, values, or traditions,” Bannon added in the opening line of Billot’s article titled, “Steve Bannon is ready for war He talks Musk, China and a third Trump term.”
Bannon added that “Musk is the one with the power at the moment,” but also slammed DOGE for not having much to show for its work so far.
“DOGE is sitting there with the budget, but where the f— are the DOGE cuts?” Bannon told Billot.
”We are 30 days away from approving a budget for the entire year with $2 trillion already baked in, and not one penny of anything that DOGE
“I notice there is a hesitancy to cross the Potomac and go to the Pentagon. I would like to see $100 billion taken off the $900 billion budget right now, which is really a trillion.”
Musk and Bannon have been at the forefront of a fierce MAGA civil war over H-1B foreign worker visas, which Bannon argues hurt American workers and Musk insists are good for the economy and necessary for his businesses.
Bannon and Musk traded heated barbs over the issue late last year. Bannon has also slammed Musk in the past for his ties to China and suggested he is not loyal to the United States – having been born in South Africa and operated his business globally.
“I will have Elon Musk run out of here by Inauguration Day,” Bannon vowed in a headline-grabbing interview before Trump took office.
While Bannon also told Billot he sees DOGE as mostly “performative,” he also offered some praise for Musk, calling him an “armor-piercing shell that’s delivering blunt force trauma against the administrative state.”
Bannon also told Billot he is still “exploring” options for Trump to run for a third term, but noted, “I don’t have right now a tremendous amount of support on this legally.”
Read the full interview here.