In an escalation of discontent among the highest-profile far-right followers of Donald Trump, his former adviser Steve Bannon has called Mr Trump’s newest favourite, Elon Musk, “racist” and a “truly evil guy”, pledging to “take this guy down” and kick him out of the Maga movement.
In an interview with the Corriere della Sera newspaper in Italy, excerpts of which were published this weekend by Breitbart, Bannon criticised Mr Musk’s embrace of some forms of immigration and vowed to ensure that Musk does not have top-level access to the White House.
“He is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy. I made it my personal thing to take this guy down,” Mr Bannon said. “Before, because he put money in, I was prepared to tolerate it – I’m not prepared to tolerate it any more.”
He said: “I will have Elon Musk run out of here by inauguration day”, which falls on January 20th. “He will not have full access to the White House. He will be like any other person.”
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Mr Musk became one of Mr Trump’s biggest cheerleaders, and certainly his richest, during the Republican’s ultimately successful campaign to regain the US presidency, spending reportedly about $270 million (€263 million) and being rewarded with a place at Mr Trump’s side ever since.
After his victory Mr Trump tapped Mr Musk to help lead an advisory group theoretically dedicated to cutting US government spending by up to $2 trillion, a quarter of its entire budget.
But Mr Musk’s embrace of H-1B visas, which allow companies – such as Mr Musk’s SpaceX and Tesla – to hire skilled professionals and engineers from outside the US, has been taken badly by other Maga acolytes who are opposed to nearly all forms of immigration. Mr Musk, who was born in South Africa, has held an H1-B visa.
“This thing of the H-1B visas, it’s about the entire immigration system is gamed by the tech overlords. They use it to their advantage. The people are furious,” said Mr Bannon, whom Mr Trump fired from his White House position during his first administration but who later reinvented himself through his War Room podcast as one of the chief evangelists of the Maga movement.
Mr Bannon further widened his aim to attack Musk’s fellow tech giants Peter Thiel and David Sacks for having South African heritage.
“He [Musk] should go back to South Africa,” Mr Bannon said. “Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth, white South Africans, we have them making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?”
Arguing that Mr Musk’s “sole objective is to become a trillionaire” and calling him a proponent of “techno-feudalism on a global scale”, Mr Bannon said.
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“I don’t support that and we’ll fight it.
“He won’t fight. He’s got the maturity of a little boy.
“He will do anything to make sure that any one of his companies is protected or has a better deal or he makes more money.
“His aggregation of wealth, and then – through wealth – power: that’s what he’s focused on.” - Guardian