Steve Bannon enthusiastically joined MAGA's immigration civil war on Friday, calling Elon Musk a “toddler” and telling X's owner to “bring it.”
As Musk doubled down on his support for H1-B work visas and criticized American workers, Bannon posted on the social media platform Gettr: “Someone please notify Child Protective Services – we need to do a 'health check' on this toddler. ”
The former Trump adviser and War Room podcast host made the post in response to Musk telling a critic of his stance on immigration to “fuck yourself in the face.”
“The reason I am in America, along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong, is because of H1B,” Musk wrote.
“Take a big step back and F*** yourself in the face. I will wage war against this issue that you cannot understand.”
South African-born billionaire Musk and fellow tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy have both defended the use of H1-B visas to hire highly skilled workers for Silicon Valley and other key industries.
This clashes with the MAGA right's “America First” anti-immigration doctrine, which has quickly developed into a schism within the American political right.
As the war of words spread online, Musk backed a post calling American workers too “re***ed” to perform high-skilled tech jobs for which foreign workers were hired.
Ramaswamy, for his part, accused American sitcoms of extolling the virtues of weaker characters over those with brains, necessitating the hiring of smarter people from other countries to fill technical roles.
“If we are serious about solving the problem, we must face the TRUTH: Our American culture has honored mediocrity over excellence for far too long,” Ramaswamy wrote.
He then called for changes in American education: “More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers… more creating, less chilling.”
Musk also declared that “hateful, unrepentant racists” must be removed from the Republican Party by the roots, calling his critics “despicable fools.”
At one point, Musk wrote of
He added: “I will fight until my last drop of blood to ensure that the land of freedom and opportunity remains.”
Bannon replied to Gettr: “Bring.It.Dude – All of It.”
Elon Musk and Steve Bannon (Getty/AFP)
In another post, he wrote: “American Jobs for American Workers: H1B Visas are a TOOL of the Tech Oligarchs to Keep Wages Low While Destroying the Spirits of American Citizens.”
Bannon further wrote: “American citizens have never bent the knee – to the British Empire, the Bolsheviks, the Nazis – are not about to start with South Africa.”
He expanded on Friday's edition of his podcast, saying tech leaders like Musk were “on the spectrum.”
“The nerds don't tolerate criticism,” he said. “They're kind of, you know, they're kind of all on the spectrum, right? They don't know, they're not deep in social skills.”
On Thursday, Musk was accused of personally punishing his critics when “proud Islamophobic” Laura Loomer and other far-right activists claimed his X social media platform removed their verification badges and the ability to monetize their accounts in retaliation.
