"By the inauguration, I'll oust Elon Musk. He won't get a pass with full access to the White House. He'll be like everyone else."
That's what Steve Bannon said in an interview with the Italian edition of Corriera della Sera. "He's a very evil man. Stopping him has become a personal issue for me. Before, because he was giving a lot of money, I was willing to put up with him. Not anymore," said Bannon, the strategist for Donald Trump's 2016 victory who has remained loyal to him.
The clash that erupted over Christmas between Elon Musk and Steve Bannon has not subsided. At the heart of the clash is immigration: H1B visas for skilled and talented immigrants, which Musk has said he is a supporter of, only to make a partial U-turn by saying they should be reformed (which Bannon says is not enough). But there is also the role of the richest man in the world in the future administration.
Maggie Haberman of the New York Times says Trump "complains to people around him that Musk is too present." Trump seems to agree with Musk, saying he supports H1B visas (even though he capped them in 2020), but a poll conducted by his former X spokesman Sean Spicer reveals that 67% of the supporter base is hostile to such visas.
"The problem is the technofeudals are using them to their advantage and people are furious," Bannon says. "76% of engineers in Silicon Valley are not Americans. That's a central part of bringing our economy back. These are the best jobs, and blacks and Latinos don't have access to them."
Bannon states that Musk's "only goal is to become a trillionaire."
Asked "why Musk wasn't at George Meloni's meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago% Bannon says this: There were two political leaders. And Trump's national security team was there. Musk is not part of this government, he's doing a performance report to help us build the administrative state, but it would have been inappropriate for him to be there. President Trump has a high opinion of Meloni and I'm sure she's talked to him about the situation in Ukraine as well. I realise that there is the Iranian issue, but Ukraine is one of the most pressing things. I think Trump respects Meloni's understanding of the situation in Ukraine. I'm sure Marco Rubio, Scott Besant, Waltz and others in Trump's national security apparatus felt it was inappropriate for Musk to be anywhere near that."
Regarding Musk's meddling in European politics, Bannon responds, "He suffered a major defeat in America on H1B visas, mocked our movement as racist and backward, and lost. He's like a child. He tried to change the subject after losing credibility in the US and the fact that, frankly, people around Trump are tired of him. We've seen his compulsive nature, his lack of understanding of the real issues and his support for only himself. His only goal is to become a trillionaire. He will do anything to ensure that every one of his companies is protected or gets a better deal or makes more money. "The accumulation of wealth, and through that, power - that is his goal. American workers will not stand for it. I was a supporter of the $250 million check he wrote to Trump, and I'm a supporter of his involvement in far-right movements in Europe: I hope he writes checks and gives them a platform. What's not good is that he's suddenly trying to implement his half-baked ideas about implementing technofeudalism on a global scale," he said.
Steve Bannon reported that in 2017 he kicked Musk out of the White House "when he tried to get subsidies paid by American workers, basically taxes for people making $35 thousand a year, to rewrite Tesla's software. I don't need to talk to Elon Musk, I know what he is up to.
Asked whether or not it matters whether or not Meloni will be able to come to the inauguration, he says this, "I don't think it makes any difference. I'm the first world political figure to endorse Meloni because I saw her potential. The best thing she can do is help Trump resolve the situation in Ukraine as soon as possible. And she doesn't need to come to the US to do that. I hope that Meloni has really changed her mind about Ukraine and has realized her mistakes. I do not speak for Trump, I speak for the far right in the US and I say: please help the President to end the war and come to the negotiating table. He can be a great mediator and I hope he can make up for his failures over the last few years." | BGNES
