Steve Bannon slams Elon Musk as “racist” and “truly evil,” vows to remove him from Trump?s inner cabinet by inauguration day

Donald Trump’s former senior advisor Steve Bannon has taken another swipe at Elon Musk, calling him “racist” and “truly evil”. 

Bannon also said that he will personally see that Musk is “kicked out” of the president-elect’s inner-circle prior to his inauguration next week. 

Infighting in Trump’s MAGA circle intensified on Sunday, Jan. 12, after Bannon again criticized Musk’s support of the H-1B program – which allows US employers to issue temporary nonimmigrant visas with the intent of filling skills gaps in sectors that require highly-specialized knowledge. 

Trump’s first term White House chief strategist, who was fired after seven months in August 2017, branded Musk as a “truly evil person” and declared decreasing his influence on the incoming commander-in chief has become “personal”. 

Bannon, Musk, and Trump

“I will get Elon Musk kicked out by the time he’s inaugurated. He won’t have a blue pass with full access to the White House. He’ll be like everyone else,” Bannon told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, with his remarks translated to English. 

“He’s a truly evil person. Stopping him has become a personal issue for me. Before, since he’s put in so much money, I was prepared to tolerate it. Not anymore.” 

Musk, who earned the nickname “First Buddy” for being a near-constant presence around Trump since the president-elect’s win at the ballot box in November, is set to lead the non-official, newly-created Department of Government Efficiency with one-time vice-president hopeful, Vivek Ramaswamy. 

He reportedly spent more than $270 million of his own money to help reelect Trump during the election cycle, a majority of which via his super-political action committee, America PAC. 

The fiercely anti-immigrant sect of Trump’s circle has been sent into a headspin after Silicon Valley tech figures, led by Musk and Ramaswamy, have come out in support of the visas, which are for highly-skilled immigrants typically working in tech, healthcare, engineering and finance. 

Bannon argues that, in turn, the visas take jobs away from American citizens. 

“The problem is that techno-feudalists are using them to their advantage and people are furious,” Bannon continued. 

The long-time Trump loyalist has argued that South African-born Musk, who himself previously held H-1B visa, is only serving his own interests by backing the program – with the Tesla CEO benefiting from the hiring of skilled foreign workers for his own companies. 

Bannon went on to lump Musk in with his fellow South African tech billionaires, David Sachs and Peter Thiel, telling them to go back to South Africa. 

“Why do we have white South Africans, the most racist people in the world, commenting on everything that happens in the United States?,” he said.