Steve Bannon tells Elon Musk to 'sit in the back and study'
President-elect Trump's former adviser Steve Bannon told tech billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk to “sit in the back and study” amid an ongoing feud between the president-elect's Silicon Valley backers and his anti-immigrant base over visas for highly skilled workers.
“They’re recent converts,” Bannon said Tuesday on his “War Room” podcast, referring to Musk and the other new Trump supporters from the tech world.
“We love converts,” he added. “But the converts sit in the back and study for years and years and years to make sure you understand the faith and you understand the nuances of the faith and understand how you can internalize the faith.”
“Don’t come up and go to the pulpit in your first week here and start lecturing people about the way things are going to be,” Bannon continued. “If you’re going to do that, we’re going to rip your face off.”
Musk, who once largely avoided politics, has become a key figure in Trump’s inner circle since pouring at least $250 million into efforts to boost his campaign. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO is set to co-chair the brand new “Department of Government Efficiency” alongside fellow tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
Several other tech executives, including some former Democratic donors, also backed Trump this cycle, shaking up Silicon Valley's image as liberal bastion.
However, Musk, Ramaswamy and their fellow Silicon Valley conservatives have found themselves at odds with Trump’s traditional MAGA base over the past week amid a debate over H-1B visas.
After Trump appointed venture capitalist Sriram Krishnan to serve as senior policy adviser on artificial intelligence, far-right activist Laura Loomer resurfaced his comments from last month urging Musk to look into removing per-country caps on green cards to "unlock” highly skilled immigration. Loomer deemed Krishnan’s appointment “deeply disturbing.”
Krishnan's fellow conservatives from Silicon Valley jumped to his defense and argued that highly skilled foreign workers are necessary to fill gaps in the workforce, particularly in the tech industry.
The debate has become increasingly contentious in recent days, with Musk calling his fellow Trump supporters “contemptible fools” who “must be removed from the Republican Party, root and stem.”
Meanwhile, Loomer has accused Musk of taking away her verification and censoring her posts on X, the social platform he owns, over the dispute. She appeared on Bannon’s “War Room” on Monday, where she slammed Musk as a “Stage 5 clinger.”