Bannon Expands War on Musk to Rest of ‘Apartheid’ Silicon Valley

Steve Bannon
Bannon’s War Room

Add Mark Zuckerberg to the list of tech billionaires in “apartheid Silicon Valley” who are making Steve Bannon’s blood boil.

The ex-Donald Trump adviser—and conservative podcaster—said Monday that Facebook’s CEO “can’t be trusted at all.”

“He came in the Oval Office—they let him in the Oval Office when I was there, and I went absolutely bonkers,” Bannon said, referring to his brief stint as White House Chief Strategist. “Later he put up $450 million of his own money to steal the 2020 election.”

Bannon claimed that Zuckerberg, like other tech executives, changes his politics to boost his personal wealth. The most recent proof of this, Bannon alleged Saturday, was that the 40-year-old had flip-flopped his stance on social media censorship in a sit-down with Joe Rogan.

Joe Rogan, left, and Mark Zuckerberg, right, sat down for an interview on Friday. / Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/The Joe Rogan Experience/YouTube Screenshot
Joe Rogan, left, and Mark Zuckerberg, right, sat down for an interview on Friday. / Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/The Joe Rogan Experience/YouTube Screenshot

“Zuckerberg and these guys can be counted on,” he said. “Only thing they can be counted on is to look after their own self interest. That’s it.”

ADVERTISEMENT

The outburst came as Bannon discussed the flurry of donations to Trump’s inauguration fund, which included the Facebook founder giving $1 million last month.

Bannon has been on a crusade against the tech industry since Vivek Ramaswamy ignited a MAGA civil war in late December. Ramaswamy defended H1-B visas in a lengthy X post that asserted Americans were too lazy—and their culture too focused on fun—to fill top tech and engineering roles. He derided cartoons, sitcoms, and prom queens in the process, sparking outrage from all corners of the country.

Bannon, 71, is clearly sick of tech titans taking over MAGA.

“We’ve had nerd rule,” he said on his Saturday show. “We saw what nerd rule was about stealing the election and, we saw what nerd rule was during the pandemic and, guess what? This country does not want nerd rule, and [we’re] not going back to it. We are not letting people like you call the shots...

“They’re bad people; they’re evil people. It’s nerd rule. They’re all on the spectrum. They don’t think like normal human beings. They’re not empathetic. They’re all sociopaths. They only think about how much money they create. They don’t know how to interact. They give that blank stare.”

Elon Musk, himself a former visa recipient, was among those who publicly supported Ramaswamy’s stance on H1-Bs. That immediately drew the ire of Bannon, who has since used his War Room podcast to harshly-criticize Musk and claim that he has the maturity of an 11-year-old. Bannon has also promised his listeners that he will thwart the world’s richest man—who is still living in a cottage on the grounds of Mar-a-Lago—from Trump’s inner circle by inauguration day.

Elon Musk has been living in a cottage on the property of Mar-a-Lago. He joined Donald Trump’s inner circle over the summer after he pumped hundreds of millions into his presidential campaign. / Brandon Bell/Getty Images
Elon Musk has been living in a cottage on the property of Mar-a-Lago. He joined Donald Trump’s inner circle over the summer after he pumped hundreds of millions into his presidential campaign. / Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Musk, 53, has softened his defense of H1-B visas—of which there are 65,000 recipients—in recent weeks, saying that the program needs to be reformed. Bannon and other MAGA hardliners now want it scrapped entirely.

ADVERTISEMENT

“It has to be just shut down,” Bannon said. “Deport everybody here on an H1-B visa immediately back to their home country and fill said jobs with American citizens, and you won’t miss one beat because—to date—we still haven’t seen one H1-B worker that has a skill set that’s greater than an American, or brain that’s greater than an American.”

Bannon then went nuclear on Silicon Valley. He said the community is an “apartheid entity” that undermines American workers, referencing the South African system of racial segregation that still existed when Musk grew up there.

“Silicon Valley’s run as an apartheid entity that has to be broken,” he said. “I’m sorry, this is the United States of America.”