Steve Bannon, former advisor to President-elect Donald Trump and a podcaster who calls his right-wing viewers on “Warfare Room” his “military of the woke up,” is determined to get billionaire and new Trump ally Elon Musk far-off from the White Home.
In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Bannon mentioned that he’ll get it accomplished earlier than the president-elect takes workplace in simply over every week. “I’ll get Elon Musk kicked out by the point he’s inaugurated,” Bannon instructed the outlet. “He received’t have a blue move with full entry to the White Home. He’ll be like everybody else.”
Bannon didn’t reply to an electronic mail from Vainness Truthful asking how he plans to oust Musk.
The pair have been dueling over what the way forward for the Make America Nice Once more technique should seem 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 towards the extremely coveted H-1B visa program—which permits employers to rent international staff “in specialty occupations or as vogue fashions.” Specialty occupations require the visa applicant to have no less than a bachelor’s diploma or its equal, per the Division of Labor. This type of visa usually goes to staff in fields corresponding to math, engineering, and know-how.
Enter Musk—the richest man on the earth who additionally occurs to be the CEO of a number of corporations in these fields, and who himself got here to the US as a global scholar and says he worked utilizing an H-1B visa. (In line with reporting from Forbes based mostly on H-1B knowledge from fiscal yr 2024, Tesla, which Musk runs, “was among the many main employers of recent foreign-born scientists and engineers.”)
“The explanation I’m in America, together with so many vital individuals who constructed SpaceX, Tesla and lots of of different corporations that made America robust, is due to H1B,” Musk wrote on X, his social media platform, in late December. “Take a giant step again and FUCK YOURSELF within the face,” he continued, “I’ll go to warfare on this situation, the likes of which you can’t probably comprehend.”
In tandem with railing towards this system’s detractors, Musk additionally mentioned the visa system might use “main reform” and was “damaged.”
That week on Warfare Room, Bannon called Musk a MAGA “convert” and instructed him to “sit within the again and research.”
“We love converts,” Bannon mentioned. “However the converts sit within the again and research for years and years and years to be sure to perceive the religion and also you perceive the nuances of the religion and perceive how one can internalize the religion.”
