Steve Bannon, former advisor to President-elect Donald Trump and a podcaster who calls his right-wing viewers on “War Room” his “army of the awakened,” is decided to get billionaire and new Trump ally Elon Musk distant from the White House.
In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Bannon stated that he’ll get it completed earlier than the president-elect takes workplace in simply over per week. “I will get Elon Musk kicked out by the time he’s inaugurated,” Bannon instructed the outlet. “He won’t have a blue pass with full access to the White House. He’ll be like everyone else.”
Bannon didn’t reply to an e-mail from Vanity Fair asking how he plans to oust Musk.
The pair have been dueling over what the way forward for the Make America Great Again technique must appear like—and who needs to be let into that motion’s ranks and the nation’s borders. Bannon, and another staunchly anti-immigration MAGA speaking heads like Laura Loomer, are in opposition to the extremely coveted H-1B visa program—which permits employers to rent international employees “in specialty occupations or as fashion models.” Specialty occupations require the visa applicant to have no less than a bachelor’s diploma or its equal, per the Department of Labor. This form of visa typically goes to employees in fields resembling math, engineering, and expertise.
Enter Musk—the richest man on the planet who additionally occurs to be the CEO of a number of firms in these fields, and who himself got here to the US as a global pupil and says he labored utilizing an H-1B visa. (According to reporting from Forbes primarily based on H-1B knowledge from fiscal yr 2024, Tesla, which Musk runs, “was among the leading employers of new foreign-born scientists and engineers.”)
“The reason I’m in America, along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong, is because of H1B,” Musk wrote on X, his social media platform, in late December. “Take a big step back and FUCK YOURSELF in the face,” he continued, “I will go to war on this issue, the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.”
In tandem with railing in opposition to this system’s detractors, Musk additionally stated the visa system might use “major reform” and was “broken.”
That week on War Room, Bannon known as Musk a MAGA “convert” and instructed him to “sit in the back and study.”
“We love converts,” Bannon stated. “But the converts sit in the back and study for years and years and years to make sure you understand the faith and you understand the nuances of the faith and understand how you can internalize the faith.”