Bannon Rails Against Musk for Putting ‘Personal Vendetta’ Over Trump’s Agenda

Steve Bannon has yet again slammed Elon Musk—this time for the billionaire’s petty criticism of an artificial intelligence project rolled out by Donald Trump that involves his tech rival Sam Altman.

Bannon rebuked Musk for bringing ”his own personal vendetta” into the White House and suggesting Altman, who’s the CEO of OpenAI, and others involved in the so-called “Stargate” project did not have the $500 billion needed to launch it.

“I’ve never seen action like this in my life,” a baffled Bannon told Politico, referring to Musk.

Bannon, himself a former White House strategist, suggested Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, should sit the world’s richest man down and “sort it out immediately” before he does something that interferes with the president’s agenda.

The drama is the latest break between Musk and a growing MAGA faction. Bannon has led criticisms against the Tesla CEO, calling him childish, a globalist, and unfit to be in Trump’s inner circle.

Musk, 53, is still relatively new as a MAGA figure. He seemingly bought his way into a White House role after spending hundreds of millions on Trump’s campaign. Prior to that, Trump had publicly mocked the native South African as being weak as recently as 2022.

Bannon, meanwhile, has stood behind Trump unequivocally since he entered politics in 2015—a point Bannon regularly repeats. Trump has shown his appreciation for the conservative influencer’s loyalty, too, with Trump name-dropping him as recently as a Wednesday in a Fox News interview where he said the 71-year-old was an incredible patriot.

It appears Musk still has the upper hand in the MAGA civil war between Bannon and Musk that began in December. Bannon claimed he would have Musk dropped from Trumpland by inauguration day, but fell well short—evidenced by Musk speaking at a celebratory rally and being given an office inside the White House on Monday.

Bannon has continued to hurl his attacks from afar, however, namely on his six-days-a-week podcast, War Room. He has taken his criticisms of Musk more mainstream in recent days, however, including the scalding interview he gave Politico and what he said to reporter on the street who asked him about Musk.

“Elon’s gotta make peace with the president,” Bannon told the reporter. “What’s he dumping on the joint venture for? He’s criticizing the president, criticizing the deal yesterday. He says the guy’s only got $10 billion, president says he has $500 billion. Can’t have that in the White House.”

The joint venture in question was announced by Trump this week and will supposedly see $500 billion invested in AI infrastructure through a partnership formed by OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank.

Musk criticized the deal immediately, writing on X that “they don’t actually have the money” and that “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”

This peeved Altman as much as it did Bannon. The tech executive called out Musk and claimed he was dead wrong about the venture’s funding.

“Wrong, as you surely know,” Altman responded. “Want to come visit the first site already under way? This is great for the country. I realize what is great for the country isn’t always what’s optimal for your companies, but in your new role I hope you’ll mostly put [America] first.”

Bannon gave his reaction to Politico, saying: “There’s something fundamentally wrong here about the structure and about [Musk’s] understanding of the structure. This is not Silicon Valley. This is not tech bros.”

Much like he has chosen to ignore Bannon throughout MAGA’s H1-B visa debate—in which Musk in favor of the program, and Bannon wants to end outright—Musk did not address Bannon’s criticisms as of Thursday afternoon.

Instead, Musk spent his first Thursday as director of the Department of Government Efficiency posting hourly to X, including a series of Holocaust jokes—just days after he was criticized for making a gesture akin to a Nazi salute—that were condemned by the Anti-Defamation League.

It is not just Bannon who is fed up. The conservative radio host Erick Erickson also had harsh words for Musk this week, declaring on his show that the billionaire needs an “intervention.”

“I think he’s becoming Icarus,” Erickson added.