Steve Bannon is out and Elon Musk is in . A human being who once had an part and a whiteboard in the White House now has a podcast . It ’s not nothing , but it ’s not an extra - governmental means that has access to the backend systems that make America run and hum . Banon was once the darling of proper - wing sensitive and the earth ’s preeminent Trump whisperer . Now he ’s “ Sloppy Steve , ” Musk issitting next to Trump during interviews , and Bannon says he ’s ready for warfare .
And while Bannon whines , Musk is opening the door to the Big Tech coup d’etat of the United States .
The Department of Government Efficiencyappears to have access to secret taxpayer data . Tom Krause , a Musk friend , will be taking over as the Fiscal Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department . He’llkeep his jobas the CEO of a software company while he does it . DOGE has gutted team that were investigatingMusk ’s various companies . Musk himself has complained about government overspend while his companies invite trillion of dollars in contracts .

Trump’s team has imagined him as a King.© Official White House AI-generated art via X.
It ’s good to say that a tech bro express joy it up next to Trump and reave America for all its worth is not the populist hereafter Bannon imagined when he hooked his station waggon to Trump ’s star in 2016 .
We ’ve known for a while that Bannon and Musk are n’t champion . But the issue got more attention this hebdomad after the 71 - year - former political operative gave aninterview in UnHerdwhere he made it clear just how much he hates the world ’s richest Isle of Man . “ Musk is a parasitic illegal immigrant . He want to impose his freak experiments and play - number as God without any respect for the country ’s history , values , or traditions , ” Bannon said .
Bannon has no one to blame but himself . During Trump ’s initial footrace for high office , he set up himself up in the medium as the éminence grise , the dreary power behind the commode . The narrative went that he apply Big Tech ’s chopine to harness populist military unit brewing just under the surface of the American electorate .

One popular story is that Bannon recognized the political power of tech - addicted young human being early on . Bannon ’s version of the taradiddle is that he figured this out while running aWorld of Warcraftgold farm . “ you may activate that USA , ” he say of the gamers . “ They come in in through Gamergate or whatever and then you get turn onto politics and Trump . ”
And Bannon spark that army . Now he ’s lost control condition of it . It ’s moved past him . Another thing those furious young men loved was Elon Musk . The people who control the platforms filled with people Bannon helped touch off — the Musks and Mark Zuckerbergs of the world — were pay attention . And they have direct control over the bonus anatomical structure of those platform , something Bannon does not have and will never have .
Bannon versus Musk stage a speculate broader break in the Trump movement . It ’s heated enough that JD Vancecommented on it in a post on X. “ I opine this civil war is overstated ( though yes there are some real divergences between the populists and the techies ) , ” the Vice President say .

professed racist scumbag influencer Nick Fuentes has had wavering commitment to Trump over the preceding year . The distinction of Musk and his chum is n’t helping . “ The same cabal theorists warn about transhumanism , big tech , messenger RNA vaccines , and surveillance for the retiring tenner are now cheerleading the Palantir occupied government led by Elon Musk , ” Fuentessaid in a mail service on X. “ liberal were right about populism . ”
But these are just posts . Vance and Fuentes and Bannon are all influencers . That ’s how political science works now . Bannon saw Trump as a vehicle for his populist ideas . But those estimation never count to Trump , not really . The only matter that matters to Trump is Trump . Trump is the political movement . It lives and cash in one’s chips with him .
Trumpism is a cult . There is nothing the President himself could do that would turn his assistant away from him . A late Pew poll revealed that most mass in the countrydon’t supportgiving the executive branch more tycoon .

But self - identify conservativist and Republicans say something else . “ Republican River who say they ‘ powerfully ’ identify with the GOP are particularly likely to say the nation ’s problems could be more effectively treat by giving Trump more power : 78 % say this , ” Pew said .
Trumpism is something new , a movement of the present moment we do n’t have adequate language to describe . I ’ve long thought Trump was anout - and - out fascist . He checks the box . But he ’s not a Nazi or a Stalinist or a Mussolini - eccentric , he ’s something else . We ’re in something new now . It ’s a strange convergence of historical trends , technology , and dying baby boomer personalities . It ’s what Garbage Day writer Ryan Broderick has called “ The Age of Influentialism . ”
“ Like all influencers , he ’s now landed on a much more direct relationship with his following , ” Broderick wrote . “ He signs an executive social club and even if it ’s blocked by motor hotel — andmany of themare , gratefully — he can still claim it as a win . And the other fellow member of Trump ’s regime are operating the same way . If Trump is MrBeast , he ’s turning our government into Lunchly . A source inside the Republican party , in arecent Semaforpiece , described the current Defense Department as , ‘ 30 blogging , podcasting , isolationistic ideologues . ’ As we speak , the Trump establishment istrying to negotiatethe press release of Andrew and Tristan Tate . It ’s influencers all the agency down . ”

As above , so below . Musk and Bannon are influencers with an audience of one : Donald Trump . Musk is embracing politics with all the ignorance and fervor of a 2008 college Freshman who just learned about the Federal Reserve and wo n’t exclude the fuck up about Ron Paul . Bannon is an honest-to-goodness ideologist who sees the grand expanse of populist energy moving through Trump .
Trump sees himself as a King . After he avail ruin over-crowding pricing in NYC he crow about it ina mail service on Truth Social : “ LONG LIVE THE KING ! . ”
In case there was any confusion about the message , Taylor Budowich — White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Cabinet Secretary — followed this up with an AI - bring forth image of Trump in a jacket crown . The official X account for the White Housefollowed causa .

pic.twitter.com/8YFK8JUNdY
— Taylor Budowich ( @Taylor47)February 19 , 2025
Bannon and Musk are both dance at the court of the mad Martin Luther King Jr. . They help birth this thing , but they are n’t in control of it . We all get to watch while it happens . Some of us will become influencers ourselves . Most of us will just be influenced .

Big TechDonald TrumpElon MuskSteven Bannon
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