Steve Bannon Calls Elon Musk a 'Parasitic Illegal Immigrant,' Accuses Him of Wanting to 'Play-act as God'

Steve Bannon, former White House chief strategist, has escalated his feud with billionaire Elon Musk, labeling him a "parasitic illegal immigrant." In an interview with British news site UnHerd, Bannon said that "he (Musk) wants to impose his freak experiments and play-act as God without any respect for the country's history, values or traditions."

His comments appeared to reference past allegations that Musk, who emigrated from South Africa, may have overstayed his visa while building his business empire in the United States, accusations Musk has denied.

"It's pretty evident the president's using him as an armor-piercing shell that's delivering blunt force trauma against the administrative state," Bannon also said in the interview, describing Musk's work as "performative."

Bannon's hostility toward Musk has intensified in recent weeks. In early January, he called the billionaire "a truly evil person" with "the maturity of a child" and vowed to remove him from influence by Inauguration Day. He has also warned Musk, a relative newcomer to the MAGA movement, that he must "sit in the back and study for years" rather than take on a leadership role.

At the heart of the dispute seems to be Musk's growing influence over Trump and his administration. The billionaire has become a key adviser and enforcer of executive orders, particularly regarding budget cuts and reductions in the federal workforce.

Musk's close ties to Trump have drawn criticism from both Democrats and certain factions within the MAGA movement, with Bannon viewing Musk as a threat to the vision he has long championed. As Slate's Molly Olmstead recently wrote in a sprawling piece about the feud:

"Bannon has worked very hard to shape the framework for MAGA populism for about a decade, and if the way he talks on his show is any indication, he feels that those long years of diligence were about to pay off, that he was on the brink of actually realizing his nationalist populist vision. Then Musk came along and, almost overnight, X-posted his way into a kind of co-president position. A tech billionaire, Musk is antithetical to Bannon's crusade against the elite; Bannon must see him as a dire threat to his most radical populist ideas"

Bannon has also taken issue with Musk's stance on immigration. While Musk has voiced strong opposition to undocumented migration, he supports high-skilled immigration programs like the H-1B visa, which Bannon and other hardline nationalists oppose.

The friction between the two on the subject was further amplified when right-wing provocateur Laura Loomer labeled Musk a "welfare queen" for benefiting from such visa programs. Bannon echoed this sentiment, saying that "sociopathic" Musk and other tech leaders owed the nation "reparations" for the jobs he says they have stolen from Americans:

Despite his sharp criticisms, Bannon has acknowledged Musk's significant financial contributions to Trump's campaign and his resulting place at the table. However, he has sought to downplay Musk's power, recently telling Politico that while Musk has some influence, he does not "have the ability to actually make decisions and inform those decisions and drive those decisions."