Donald Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon pledged to get right wing billionaire Elon Musk booted from the president-elect’s circle by inauguration day.
In an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Bannon called Musk a “truly evil guy” and a “racist” who has no place in the MAGA camp, The Daily Beast reports.
“I will have Elon Musk run out of here by Inauguration Day,” Bannon said. “He is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy. I made it my personal thing to take this guy down. Before, because he put money in, I was prepared to tolerate it; I’m not prepared to tolerate it anymore.”
Musk, the world’s richest man, spent more than $250 million of his own money to get Trump elected and has been a constant presence at the president-elect’s side ever since—which is reportedly starting to irritate Trump.
Musk drew the ire of anti-immigration MAGA faithfuls when he voiced support for H-1B visas, which allow US companies to hire highly skilled workers from overseas. The feud lasted for days with Musk appearing to endorse a post calling American workers too “retarded” for skilled jobs.
“He suffered a major defeat in America on H1B visas, he derided our movement as racist and retarded, and he lost,” Bannon said. “He has the maturity of a child. He has tried to change the conversation, after losing credibility in the United States and the fact that, frankly, people around Trump are tired of him.”
Bannon added that the billionaires around Trump, not just Musk, must go.
“Peter Thiel, David Sacks, Elon Musk, are all white South Africans,” he said. “He should go back to South Africa. Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth, white South Africans, we have them making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?”
[Composite image via Newsweek]
