‘Going back to prison:’ Elon Musk wants Steve Bannon jailed after SpaceX threat
Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk ramped up his ongoing feud with Steve Bannon Tuesday after asserting that President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist would be “going back to prison.”
“Bannon is going back to prison,” Musk wrote on X, responding to a comment suggesting Bannon wanted the United States government to “nationalize” the billionaire's space technology company. “This time for a long time.”
The feud between Musk and Bannon kicked off in June after Bannon called for the Trump administration to launch a probe into Musk’s immigration status, suggesting the South African native may have overstayed his visa in the United States. Bannon has also called for a probe into Musk’s alleged drug use, with The New York Times reporting Musk to have used “ketamine often, sometimes daily, and mixing it with other drugs” back in May.
Bannon has also been critical of Musk’s brief tenure leading the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, the federal task force established to reduce government waste.
Bannon was indicted in 2020 on charges off fraud and money laundering related to the “We Build the Wall” campaign, a fundraiser dedicated to crowdfunding funds to build Trump’s proposed border wall on America's southern border. While he would go on to receive a full pardon from Trump in early 2021, Bannon was indicted and found guilty in 2022 of criminal contempt of Congress after defying a January 6 subpoena, receiving a four-month federal prison sentence.
Musk and Trump have fallen out recently after the billionaire repeatedly bashed Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. On Monday, he vowed to see Republicans supportive of the bill “lose their primary (election) next year” on Monday in a social media post, something Bannon has pushed back on.
“This was the guy that told the president he was going to cut two trillion dollars of waste, fraud and abuse, but then he backed it off to one trillion,” Bannon said Monday, speaking on his podcast War Room. “I don’t know, folks, I know some of you fanboys said we got $160 billion, but we haven’t seen the $160 billion. What we do have is a $9 billion rescission, and all of that is programmatic.”