WASHINGTON — After word leaked out about a clash at the White House where members of President Trump’s Cabinet challenged the authority of Elon Musk to reshape their departments, one of the president’s top allies, Steve Bannon, quickly piled on.
Bannon, who has characterized Musk as an interloper, a “parasitic illegal immigrant,’’ and a “truly evil person,’’ suggested the world’s richest man was weighing Trump down.
“I don’t want to say an anchor or lodestone,’’ Bannon said Friday of Musk on his show “War Room,’’ which is watched closely by a number of Trump allies, as well as the president himself. “It’s not that yet, but it’s trending — that is starting to affect everybody.’’
The longstanding animus between Bannon and Musk encapsulates a key tension at the heart of Trump’s Make America Great Again movement. It pits those like Bannon, who want Trump to carry out a more fully populist agenda, against ultrawealthy interests, epitomized by Musk, who occupy key positions in the president’s orbit.
Trump has made clear he wants to keep both men and their allies within his movement, but Bannon’s vocal disdain for Musk has been noticed by the president. In mid-February, the president told Bannon that he wanted him to lay off the attacks on Musk and for the two men to sit down privately, according to two people familiar with the comments.
That meeting has not happened yet, and it is not clear when or if it will.
But Trump’s effort to mediate between the two men, which has not been previously reported, reflects the president’s awareness that Bannon has a powerful megaphone with key parts of the MAGA base.
Bannon has been preaching about populism since the Tea Party wave slowly started to remake the Republican Party in 2010. He and his acolytes see Musk as an opportunist with no ideological stake in the MAGA movement who only wants to advance his own interests.
But Bannon’s vision for the movement also has its fair share of critics for its alignment with right-wing nationalism, which he has labeled a “badge of honor.’’ “Let them call you racists,’’ Bannon told a far-right gathering in France in 2018.
Musk, who was a Trump critic for years before becoming one of his biggest benefactors, has seemingly given little thought to the MAGA movement. Musk has been privately irritated by Bannon’s attacks at times, according to people in touch with him. But he has only rarely engaged with Bannon. “Bannon is a great talker, but not a great doer,’’ Musk posted on X, his social media platform, last month.
In a statement, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said: “We do not comment on private conversations that may or may not have occurred. President Trump is thrilled with DOGE’s historic work under Elon Musk, and he will continue to cut the waste, fraud, and abuse in our federal government on behalf of the American people.’’
A spokesperson for Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
In an interview with The New York Times last month, Bannon said there were fundamental differences between him and Musk.
“He’s still not a populist nationalist, he’s a globalist,’’ Bannon said of the tech billionaire. “He and I have a chasm that is probably insurmountable.’’
As for Musk, his future intentions regarding politics are unclear. But one thing is not: Having been born in South Africa, he is ineligible to run for president — a fact Trump has noted publicly.
