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Steve Bannon saw it coming. So forgive him for saying I told you so.
In a call with me Thursday afternoon — as President Donald Trump and erstwhile ally Elon Musk were trading escalating attacks online — the godfather of the MAGA movement slammed the billionaire for betraying the president and being “destructive” to the Trump agenda in trying to tank the president’s “big, beautiful bill.”
“MAGA’s done with him,” Bannon declared, months after he first predicted that Trump and Musk would eventually fall out of favor — and warned Trump to be wary of the tech baron and his motives.
He’s also suggesting, as The New York Times first reported, that Trump suspend Musk’s security clearance, cancel his contracts, investigate his alleged drug use, and even consider deporting the naturalized U.S. citizen as an “illegal alien.”
Bannon has long considered Musk a suspect character, someone who in his view is a particularly untrustworthy representative of a self-interested class of tech billionaires who had sidled up to Trump for all the wrong reasons and never truly was part of his America First movement. “I took a lot of criticism,” he noted, for calling Musk out at a time when the party was high on his promises to slice $2 trillion in government spending through his Department of Government Efficiency.
“I think MAGA is now seeing exactly what he was” all along, he added. “I'm just saying, ‘Hey, told you — knew this was gonna happen, folks. Not a hard one.”
Bannon pointed to two proximate reasons for the sudden unraveling of the relationship this week. To start, there was Musk’s decision to target what is shaping up to be Trump’s greatest, and maybe only, second-term legislative accomplishment.
It’s one thing, he said, to want changes to the “big, beautiful bill” — like how Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has pushed for more spending cuts or Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has worked to protect Medicaid. It’s quite another to tell 220 million followers to call up their representatives and “KILL the BILL.”
“He's not being constructive — he's being destructive,” Bannon said. “He's made this a personal vendetta against the president of the United States because the president dismissed him.” (Though, I’ll note, they seemed to be on fine terms when Musk left the White House last month.)
The other reason for the breakup, he said, was broader: Musk’s essential miscalculation that his $250 million investment in the 2024 elections could have bought him enduring influence with Trump.
“Trump is the least donor-responsive political figure in history — he doesn't give two fucks,” Bannon said. “Elon was under some impression that you write Trump a big check and eventually there's going to be some sort of payoff. Trump doesn't work like that.”
Musk leaned into the notion that he feels wronged by Trump Thursday, writing on X of Trump’s “ingratitude” and claiming that Trump would have lost the election without his intervention.
Trump — ever sensitive to those questioning his political acumen — hit back hard. After staying silent for days as Musk fanned the flames against the megabill, he weighed in after Musk’s attacks turned personal.
“The easiest way to save money in our Budget…. is to terminate Elon’s Government Subsidies and Contracts,” he said, adding in a Bannon-esque flourish that Musk had been out only for himself: “I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!”
The MAGA mega divorce has not only sucked up all the attention and headlines in Washington, it’s put so many Republicans in a suddenly awkward position — essentially forced to pick sides. “Will be interesting to see what Republican lawmakers do now,” MAGA influence Laura Loomer wrote on X. “I’ve been on the hill all day and it’s all anyone is talking about.”
One especially fawning Musk fan, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, posted, “But … I really like both of them.”
But don’t expect a whole lot of hand-wringing otherwise: Musk might be the richest man in the world, but Trump commands loyalty in a way the Tesla founder never has. Musk has the money, but Trump has the movement.
“MAGA is going to back the president 100 percent,” Bannon agreed, dismissing Musk’s following as a smattering of “crypto bros … who have the mentality of 11-year-olds” and worship his every move.
He’s not wrong. Inside GOP political circles, Musk was seen as something of a joke until Trump adopted him into his inner circle. Republicans loved his deep pockets, but many privately mocked his efforts to elect Trump, noting that many of his own volunteers left because his get-out-the-vote effort was such a mess.
Indeed, the Trump divorce is risky for Musk — not only because he’s alienating the most powerful man in the world, but because he’s exposing how little political capital he has to go with his overwhelming financial capital.
Conservatives on Capitol Hill didn’t jump at his command to sink the bill; instead they mostly expressed frustration that he didn’t help them fight for more cuts last month when it might have made a difference. Other Republicans predicted his decision to launch a personal campaign against Trump — to the point of associating him with the late sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein — will only alienate his allies in the GOP.
“If his goal here is to move legislation, this shows he really doesn’t have the juice,” said one Trump associate granted anonymity to speak frankly about Musk. “At the end of the day, is Marjorie [Taylor Greene] going to go with Elon or Trump? She’s going with Trump.”
Bannon suggested that Musk would continue his broadsides against the president to try and worm his way back into the good graces of Democrats as he tries to bolster faltering Tesla sales. All of a sudden, prominent members of the opposition party, including top Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, are taking his own words and quoting them back to voters. Rep. Ro Khanna of California is openly arguing Democrats should welcome him back in the fold.
“First thing, he's a business guy,” Bannon said. “He's got to sell some cars — and he's not going to sell any cars to MAGA.”
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