Steve Bannon hopes to get Elon Musk to see the populist light after President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House and starts implementing his policy vision.
Until then, Mr. Bannon is prepared to go to war with Mr. Musk and other tech giants who jumped on the Trump bandwagon in the 2024 election and are seen by some as a threat to the philosophical roots of the MAGA movement.
“What is shocking to me is that he doesn’t have much power because he doesn’t have the ability to actually make decisions, inform those decisions and drive those decisions,” the popular “War Room” host said Tuesday of Mr. Musk at a Politico forum.
Mr. Bannon, a chief strategist in Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign who served early in the first term, acknowledged that Mr. Musk has the two biggest nuclear weapons in modern-day politics: unlimited cash and the X social media platform, where he can promote and censor political debates.
“President Trump is good, particularly about people arguing ideas and the best idea and the best policy wins,” Mr. Bannon said. “So going forward it is going to be quite intense.”
Mr. Bannon has clashed with Mr. Musk, particularly over immigration, and vowed in a recent interview that he will get the Tesla and SpaceX CEO “kicked out” of the White House by the time Mr. Trump is inaugurated on Monday.
“He should go back to South Africa,” Mr. Bannon recently told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. “Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth, white South Africans … making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?”
However, Mr. Musk is hanging around. He has been a regular at Mar-a-Lago and is co-leading a new Department of Government Efficiency that will have the task of cutting wasteful spending.
It’s raising concerns among the MAGA faithful that the world’s richest man and other tech giants could have too much influence over Mr. Trump’s decision-making during his second term.
On Tuesday, Mr. Bannon downplayed Mr. Musk’s influence over Mr. Trump. He acknowledged that the X owner has had some influence over Cabinet picks, but even there he lost out after Mr. Trump tapped Scott Bessent instead of Howard Lutnick to head the Treasury Department.
Mr. Bannon said he has butted heads with Mr. Musk on electric vehicle tax credits and claimed an early victory over Mr. Musk in the raging debate over H-1B visas for highly skilled workers.
“He has already said they need to be reformed,” Mr. Bannon said, alluding to a recent Musk post on social media. “We have said they have to be done away with.”
Mr. Trump has aligned himself more with Mr. Musk, saying it makes sense for the nation to let some of the world’s brightest minds stay. Mr. Bannon likens the program to indentured servitude.
“I think we will get Elon there,” Mr. Bannon said. “As soon as I can turn Elon Musk from a techno futilist to a populist nationalist, we will start making real progress.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.