Elon Musk and Steve Bannon’s bitter rivalry reached a new low this Fourth of July weekend, with the tech billionaire publicly ridiculing the former Trump adviser and calling for his arrest.
The feud reignited after Bannon used his War Room podcast to tear into Musk for floating the idea of a new political party on X. Bannon accused Musk of being a foreign interloper with no business shaping U.S. politics.
“Only a foreigner could do this,” Bannon fumed. “He’s got a poll up about starting an American Party—he’s not American, he’s South African. If we take the time to prove it, he should be deported.”
Bannon, a convicted ex-White House strategist and longtime Trump loyalist, has repeatedly questioned Musk’s political intentions and even called for investigations into his ties to President Trump.
Musk, who became a U.S. citizen in 2002, didn’t hold back in his response on X.
“The fat, drunken slob called Bannon will go back to prison—and this time for a long time,” Musk wrote. “He has a lifetime of crime to pay for.”
Despite both being aligned with Trump at various points, the two men have diverged sharply. Musk briefly advised Trump early in his presidency but distanced himself over policy disagreements. Bannon, meanwhile, continues to use his media platform to rally the MAGA base and target perceived traitors—including Musk.
Their latest clash was triggered by Musk’s viral July 4th poll asking his 221 million followers if he should form the “America Party,” a new political force to rival Republicans and Democrats. Bannon responded by calling the idea “a foreign joke.”
The personal attacks mark an escalation in what has become one of the GOP’s ugliest internal feuds—pitting two high-profile, Trump-adjacent figures against each other in a very public war of words.
