Steve Bannon suggested a peculiar solution to the Trump-Musk breakup: Kick the Tesla billionaire out of the country.
“They should initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien, and he should be deported from the country immediately,” he told The New York Times in a phone interview.
On Thursday, ex-special government employee Elon Musk and President Donald Trump went at each other’s throats over Trump’s signature “big, beautiful” spending bill currently before Congress, leaving Republicans wondering whom to stand behind.
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Bannon said that the Trump administration should investigate Musk for his effort to participate in a classified briefing on China in March and for his regular drug use during his tenure, which The New York Times reported on Friday. He added that Musk’s security clearance should also be suspended.
The rightwing pundit and former Trump adviser also roasted former special government employee Musk on his podcast, slamming the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and making his loyalties to President Donald Trump crystal clear.
“Here’s the problem with Elon,” he said on War Room Thursday. “Very simple. He promised a trillion dollars in cuts in waste, fraud, and abuse, and listen—for all the fanboys out there. I’m gonna treat you fanboys like little puppies; they’re gonna rub your nose in the mess you made.”
Musk originally vowed to root out $1 trillion of waste, fraud, and abuse and save taxpayers by slashing the federal government. But he fell far short of his goal. Musk allegedly wanted a bigger role as Trump’s adviser, but his tenure at the White House was rocked by internal clashes, drug use, and Trump’s skepticism over Musk’s role—he questioned whether DOGE was “bulls--t.” Musk was only able to cut $170 billion despite over 270,000 people losing their jobs due to the initiative’s layoffs.
“Remember the mantra of going through all the Social Security people that were 200 years old? Not one penny was ever found,” Bannon said, mocking Musk’s scheme to cut federal spending by eliminating alleged deceased Social Security users from the system. “Where’s the fraud in Medicaid, which is ripe for fraud? Never came up with anything. Where’s the fraud at the Pentagon, which is the MacDaddies of waste, fraud, and abuse? Not one penny.”
In a few short hours of online battling, Trump had already insisted that Musk “went CRAZY!” after he was asked to leave the White House and even threatened to cut the Tesla billionaire’s government contracts. Musk snapped back that Trump wouldn’t have won the election without him and then dropped another bombshell: Trump was included in the FBI’s files on alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, which is why the government has not released further documents about the case, Musk said.
Musk, who used to spend up to seven days sleeping at the White House and even raided the mansion’s fridge, slowly grew apart from Trump as his 130-day term wound down and he prepared to retreat from politics. By May, fissures were already forming—but few knew the magnitude of the divide. Externally, the two maintained that all was fine and, last week, Trump even gave his “first buddy” a golden key to the White House.
But Thursday’s dramatic split and the toxic exchange that followed rivals even the most biblical betrayals. It’s forced their friends to fall in line, with some die-hard Musk fans already duking it out online with MAGA members.
Former White House chief strategist Bannon is one of Trump’s most loyal confidants, and he was even pardoned by the president in 2021. Bannon, who has floated the idea of a third Trump term, decided that playing his cards right meant backing the man with a finger on the nuke button.
So he decided to teach Musk’s groupies a lesson.
“Elon fanboys: Take your number two pencil out and write this down,” he said.
