Musk unloads multiple angry strikes on Steve Bannon, after he urges Trump to take him down: “Communist Retard”
The feud between Elon Musk and the Trump camp just got even messier, with Steve Bannon now calling on President Donald Trump to take the extraordinary step of seizing SpaceX—and even going as far as demanding Musk be deported.
After this week’s high-octane fallout between Trump and one of his biggest campaign donors and former top advisers, Bannon wasted no time jumping into the fray. During Thursday’s episode of his War Room podcast, the longtime MAGA bulldog slammed Musk’s push for cost-cutting within government contracts, then escalated the rhetoric into total meltdown mode.
Bannon referenced a tense social media standoff between the ex-allies, where Trump threatened to strip Musk of lucrative government deals. Musk, never one to back down, fired off that SpaceX would “begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.” That’s when Bannon delivered his wildest take yet:
“When he threatens to take one of the big programs out of SpaceX, President Trump tonight should sign an executive order calling for the Defense Production Act to be called and seize SpaceX tonight before midnight,” Bannon declared.
Bannon, who no longer holds any official role in the Trump administration but has continued to try to shape MAGA policy through his show, is now pushing legal and political boundaries. But there’s a catch: the Defense Production Act of 1950 doesn’t actually authorize the government to “seize” private companies outright.
What it does permit is for the president to direct private industries during times of emergency—ordering them to prioritize federal contracts, allocate critical resources, or issue loans, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Past administrations from both parties have invoked the act for everything from military gear production to the manufacture of essential COVID-19 supplies.
Musk, in classic Musk fashion, didn’t exactly cite the CFR. Instead, he fired back with a middle-school-level insult that’s sadly all too common among MAGA meme warriors. When someone posted Bannon’s quote to X, Musk replied: “Bannon is peak r—-d.” Under another thread calling Bannon’s remarks authoritarian, Musk doubled down: “Bannon is a communist r—-d.”
Bannon is peak retard
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 6, 2025
That’s where this public spat now stands: a former presidential advisor calling to nationalize a space company, and the richest man in the world resorting to slurs.
Bannon is a communist retard
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 6, 2025
SpaceX, which has been crucial to NASA since the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011, could become a major pressure point in the political fallout. The U.S. agency now relies almost entirely on SpaceX’s Dragon capsule to ferry astronauts to the ISS—once done by Russia’s Soyuz system.
Just this past March, the Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched the Crew-10 mission from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, a sign of how critical this public-private partnership has become.
But Bannon wasn’t done lobbing verbal grenades. He warned that Musk—should he fully break with Trump—might retaliate by backing Democrats, even helping them “steal the ’28 election, looking to imprison President Trump.”
That kind of talk isn’t new for Bannon, who was one of the loudest voices behind the debunked conspiracy that Joe Biden “stole” the 2020 election. He repeated the same baseless prediction about 2024 and now appears to be preemptively pushing the same narrative about 2028.
Whatever this Musk–Trump–Bannon triangle turns into next, it’s no longer just about egos. It’s threatening billion-dollar government programs, political stability, and possibly the future of American space exploration.
https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/what-defense-production-act
Note to our readers: All quotes in this article are verified and publicly sourced. This report is based on information from reputable outlets including NASA, the Council on Foreign Relations, and Reuters. Our editorial policy ensures facts are rigorously cross-checked, providing readers with the most reliable breakdown of fast-moving developments.
