• Charter, a big cable and broadband company, is buying Cox, a smaller one.
• Is there an antitrust issue here? Maybe?
• But Charter is hoping it can get on Donald Trump's good side by pitching the deal as Great for America.

Charter, one of the country's biggest cable and broadband companies, is buying Cox, a smaller cable and broadband company.

If you're a customer of either company, you might be vaguely interested in what the deal means for you. And what might you think if you're the president of the United States?

Well, Charter is hoping you'll think this is a deal that Makes America Great Again.

It's a real sign of the times in the Trump 2.0 Era: A pretty standard proposed merger is being framed as an explicitly pro-American deal.

But don't take my word for it. Consult Charter's press release, which says the deal will produce "powerful benefits for American employees, customers, communities, and shareholders."

Charter also promises the deal will "deliver high-value products that save American families money, and we'll onshore jobs from overseas to create new, good-paying careers for US employees."

And in case you didn't pick up on it the first two times, Charter is happy to underline the point. It says this deal "puts America first by returning jobs from overseas and creating new, good-paying customer service and sales careers."

Charter is also happy to say the same thing in reverse: It says this deal is bad for bad people who don't live in America. "The combined company will retain its industry leadership in protecting the security of US communications networks from foreign threats," the company says.

The responsible, fair-minded journalist in me needs to note that at least one part of the Charter pitch doesn't seem to be constructed solely for President Donald Trump: Charter has previously pushed to bring customer service jobs it used to outsource in other countries back to America.

That was something Trump liked hearing from Charter the first time he was in office — even if it was about plans Charter had made before Trump's election.

Fine. And it's certainly not unusual for big companies to frame M&A deals in a way that's explicitly meant to please politicians and regulators. But those pitches were usually about whether those deals would reduce competition (standard line for any old-world company buying another: "We need to do this to take on Big Tech.")

This is … very different. We also have no idea whether it will work: The Trump 2.0 Era has been pretty scattershot in terms of what kind of deals clear antitrust or other regulatory bars, and which ones get opposed.

But at a minimum, it's raising eyebrows. "It's a MAGA press release," someone at a Charter competitor muttered to me Friday. Left unsaid: Maybe that's a good approach?

• Federal employees can once again wear political apparel to work.
• Trump's administration rescinded prior guidance that prohibited campaign or political clothing.
• Federal employees are still prohibited from engaging in political activities while on duty.

Grab your MAGA hat: Federal employees can once again wear political clothing to work.

On Wednesday, employees at the Social Security Administration received an email informing them of a change in guidance on wearing political apparel at work. The email, viewed by Business Insider, said that the Office of Special Counsel has returned to its previous policy that "does not prohibit wearing or displaying campaign or election-related items in the workplace after Election Day."

The email went on to note that "year-round employees remain prohibited from engaging in activity that shows support for or opposition to political parties or partisan political groups while on duty, in a government room or building, wearing an official uniform or insignia, or using a government vehicle."

The change in guidance refers to an advisory from the Office of Special Counsel issued on April 25. The OSC said it was rescinding May 2024 guidance on the Hatch Act — a law that restricts the political activities of federal employees — that prohibited the display of campaign items in the workplace after election day.

The previous guidance created "too great a burden on First Amendment interests and must therefore be discarded," the advisory said.

The change comes after Social Security employees received an email in March, viewed by BI, that reminded them not to wear or display items of political parties or campaign slogans, including "'MAGA/Make American Great Again' or 'When We Fight, We Win.'"

The rescission reverts the rules back to guidance from November 2020, which states that with some exceptions, the Hatch Act "does not prohibit employees from wearing campaign items, like t-shirts or hats, and displaying candidate photographs while they are on duty" after Election Day.

The Office of Special Counsel did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

Trump's administration, alongside the White House DOGE Office, is working to reshape the federal workforce and slash government waste. Over the past few months, thousands of federal workers across agencies have been terminated, and more reductions-in-force are expected later this year.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or Signal at asheffey.97. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

These are the faces behind President Donald Trump's unprecedented first 100 days.

Whether they're a familiar image on TV screens or shy away from the spotlight, these 14 people have played a crucial role in authoring the deluge of executive orders and policies that have eroded norms, upended global markets, and laid the foundation for Trump's second term.

They have championed many of the policies reorienting America today: tariffs, deportations, federal worker firings, and budget cuts. Others drive the Trump brand, shaping media and public perception of the administration as it rolls out an agenda at lightning speed.

"President Trump has assembled an exceptional team dedicated to Making America Great Again," Assistant Press Secretary Liz Huston said. "Under his leadership, the Cabinet and White House officials are united in their mission to usher in a new Golden Age in America."

Love it or hate it, the 14 people on this list are behind it all, in alphabetical order.

Scott Bessent

Call him the market whisperer. A former hedge fund manager who now finds himself as the Treasury secretary at the center of the US's most complex trade negotiations in decades. Wall Street counts him as a moderating influence, and shares tend to go up when Bessent speaks. But Trump is a protectionist at heart, and it remains to be seen if Bessent's relatively trade-friendly views will win out.

Pam Bondi

Bondi is among a handful of the president's personal lawyers who now wield power. As US attorney general, she's made it a point to go after "domestic terrorists" attacking Tesla dealerships. Following Trump's lead, Bondi has directed prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione, who is charged with shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. She praised the DOJ's landmark antitrust victory over Google, though it remains to be seen how she'll handle Big Tech going forward.

Tom Homan

The official White House border czar, Homan is the man behind mass deportations. He has defended sending alleged gang members to El Salvador, and promised "another flight every day" of migrants being sent out of the country in an interview in March. Homan worked at ICE under former President Barack Obama and during Trump's first term, and is listed as a contributor to conservative road map Project 2025.

Mike Johnson

As Speaker of the House, Johnson owes his gavel to Trump. The first 100 days will look easy in comparison to what lies ahead. The easiest part will likely be trying to codify some of the White House's DOGE office's cuts into laws. Johnson will face a taller order in trying to squeeze Trump's sweeping tax cuts and immigration plans through a narrowly controlled chamber. Thus far, Johnson has faced down internal dissent over Trump's tariffs.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Many might know RFK Jr. as a vaccine skeptic or the face behind Make America Healthy Again, but he's also floated big cuts in his role as health secretary. Proposed changes at the FDA, CDC, and NIH could influence programs like HIV/AIDs prevention and food facility inspections. RFK Jr. recently directed all food companies to remove synthetic dyes from their products by 2027, and he's criticized other private sector industries, like weight-loss drugs.

Karoline Leavitt

As the youngest White House press secretary, Leavitt, 27, is often the public face of the second Trump administration's policies. She's known to spar with reporters during press briefings, particularly when it comes to thornier subjects like tariffs and immigration. The sometimes-combative dynamic was on display when talking about the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man: "Based on the sensationalism of many of the people in this room, you would think we deported a candidate for Father of the Year."

Howard Lutnick

A Wall Street billionaire, Lutnick is Trump's secretary of commerce and a big tariff advocate. He called for reciprocal tariffs during his confirmation hearings and has accused other nations of ripping America off. Unlike Bessent, his counterpart at Treasury, Lutnick is much more loquacious in his TV appearances, and not always to the White House's benefit. He urged Americans not to worry about a recession even as Trump was conceding that tariffs might bring short-term pain.

Stephen Miller

As White House deputy chief of staff, Miller is again the point man of Trump's immigration policy, though he's considerably more powerful than during the president's first term. Miller has helped lead Trump's ramp-up of deportations and invocation of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. Outside immigration, Miller has taken an active role in Trump's clashes with Big Law.

Elon Musk

The de facto leader of the White House DOGE office has wielded unmatched power at the center of the administration's efforts to slash the federal workforce. He has retained his brazen persona, speaking his mind more openly than many conventional political appointees. Musk has criticized Trump's tariffs, dismissed a fellow White House advisor as "a moron," and went so far as to suggest that Social Security is a "Ponzi scheme." Faced with Tesla investor backlash, Musk has signaled that he will be stepping back from DOGE.

Peter Navarro

One of Trump's top trade advisors, Navarro is the mastermind behind the tariffs that have scrambled markets and global trade. He was a fixture in Trump's first term and has been a long-time hawk on trade with countries like China. He has returned with his protectionist, anti-trade policies after a stint in jail for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the January 6 committee. When announcing Navarro's appointment, Trump said he "was treated horribly by the Deep State." Navarro has publicly clashed with Musk over tariffs.

Marco Rubio

Senate Democrats hoped their former colleague would moderate Trump's foreign policy as secretary of state. Rubio has instead presided over a dramatic reduction in the size and scope of the State Department, starting with the US Agency for International Development, which Musk described as having been fed "into the wood chipper." Rubio has been vocal on immigration, defending actions like deporting migrants to El Salvador and canceling student visas for people he said were engaged in pro-Palestinian protests (some visas have been reinstated). As the nation's top diplomat, Rubio has put pressure on Ukraine to accept a peace deal with Russia.

JD Vance

Trump's second-in-command has wasted little time staking out his role. Vance has welcomed the fight and dismissed the concerns of fellow Republicans deemed insufficiently loyal to Trump. The vice president has served as the face of a Euro-skeptic White House. "Have you said thank you once?" Vance asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy before an Oval Office visit went off the rails.

Russell Vought

Though Vought served in Trump's first administration, he's perhaps best known as one of the key authors of Project 2025. Trump has tried to distance himself from the playbook, but many of its priorities echo in his agenda so far: firing federal employees, mass deportations, and abolishing the Education Department, to name a few. Vought is the director of the Office of Management and Budget and helps carry out the DOGE agenda.

Susie Wiles

The first woman to serve as a president's chief of staff, Wiles largely stays out of the spotlight but plays a big role wrangling the many dueling personalities in Trump's orbit — Mac Stipanovich, a longtime Florida operative, told Politico that "she is an expert in unstable, dysfunctional, famous men." Wiles has been a part of Trump's inner circle for years. Level-headed and controlled, she keeps the administration's machinery running.

Reclining out on his terracotta-tiled terrace, his bare feet propped up on a worn ottoman, Steve Bannon gets a phone call. We're 2,000 miles from the Oval Office, at Bannon's Tuscan villa outside Tucson, an Italianate fountain gurgling away beside him. You might think Donald Trump's former strategist-in-chief is out of the loop these days, relegated to basking in the Arizona sun. But the call is from Alexandra Preate, a Bannon protégé who's now a top advisor to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The stock market has just gone into a nosedive, spooked by Trump's on-again, off-again tariffs, and Preate wants to consult with Bannon on Bessent's markets-calming remarks to reporters that morning outside the White House.

"He was so brilliant," Bannon tells her. "He has got to do that every day."

Fresh out of federal prison for his refusal to talk to Congress about his role in the attempt to overturn Joe Biden's election, the man Time magazine once called "The Great Manipulator" remains an influential force in Washington. As I saw during my two days with him, Bannon, at age 71, is still crafting MAGA's message at the highest levels. He says he speaks daily with Trump's top trade advisor, Peter Navarro, who served as Bannon's cohost of "War Room," the rowdy, MAGA-fueled podcast Bannon helms twice a day, six days a week. Bessent, whom Bannon calls "my guy," and FBI Director Kash Patel are friends, and Sen. Josh Hawley, a right-wing populist, is a frequent guest on the show. Just last week, Bannon was summoned back to what he calls the "Imperial Capital" to assist the administration "on messaging for Flood the Zone" — Trump World-speak for overwhelming the president's opponents with fresh MAGA initiatives.

Prominent Democrats are also paying heed. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, who is widely expected to run for president in 2028, featured Bannon as the third guest on his new podcast. "He's a serious thinker," says Rep. Ro Khanna, another California Democrat touted as a 2028 contender. "Bannon got it right on the challenge deindustrialization poses" to the American economy. Khanna tells me he'd be open to appearing on "War Room," which The Wall Street Journal recently called "the hottest stop in DC's media circuit."

Despite his continued influence, Bannon doesn't agree with Trump on every issue. And this time around, there's a major new player separating the two: Trump's former right-hand man is at complete odds with his current right-hand man. Elon Musk, Bannon tells me, is basically the devil incarnate. "Elon was always evil," he says. Don't get him wrong: Bannon supports what Musk is doing with DOGE, which he lauds as "a shock troop to deconstruct the administrative state." But he says there is a "very deep chasm" between him and Musk — one based not only in politics, but in spirituality. Musk, as Bannon sees it, is the embodiment of a new form of satanism. By seeking to implant computer chips in people's brains, Musk is attempting to disrupt humanity itself, a grandiose vision that is antithetical to what Bannon, a Catholic, sees as God's will.

"He's a techno-feudalist," Bannon tells me with barely concealed venom. "We are on the side of the human being."

Musk's dark plot to engineer a race of computer-enhanced superhumans has done nothing to diminish Bannon's enthusiasm for Trump. In fact, Bannon tells me he is undertaking perhaps his most ambitious project yet: ensuring that Trump wins a third term in 2028. Bannon is confident, he tells me, that Trump will carry at least 331 electoral votes next time — a triumph even greater than his victory over Kamala Harris.

How, I ask, can that happen within the bounds of the Constitution?

He's working on it, Bannon tells me.

Bannon's villa is nestled in a quiet neighborhood of ranch houses, saguaros, and mesquite trees overlooking the Santa Catalina mountains. He still spends most of his time in Washington, at a townhouse he owns behind the Supreme Court. But sometimes, he tells me, it's good to escape the unceasing procession of visitors who call on him in the capital. Besides, he can host "War Room" just as easily from here, in a small corner room in the villa.

Welcoming me to his retreat, Bannon asks why I became a journalist. I suppose journalism suited my skeptical cast of mind, I say.

"You're a dick," he says.

I'm momentarily speechless. That's a good thing, he assures me. Real journalists are always dicks.

A massive coffee table perched in front of Bannon's armchair supports four stacks of newspapers: not just mainstream periodicals like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, but outliers like The Epoch Times, a paper founded by Chinese American adversaries of the Chinese Communist Party. Where Trump professes admiration for Xi Jinping as a strong leader, Bannon, who once lived in Shanghai, views China as America's mortal enemy and dreams of a popular rebellion that will overthrow the communist regime.

A collection of books and periodicals sprawls from the table to the base of the fireplace to the kitchen counter. I leaf through "The Money and the Power," a book on the making of Las Vegas, and see Bannon's hand-scrawled circles and underlines strewn across the pages. His omnivorous reading, he tells me, is a key advantage in political strategizing, a calling in which few of his rivals are known for being avid readers. The TV on his wall is set not to CNN, which he views as aimless, or Fox News, which he dismisses as weak neoliberal tea, but to MSNBC, which he treasures as a true-blue voice he can push back against in the "War Room." "There's my girl," he says when MSNBC afternoon host Nicolle Wallace appears on the screen.

Some in Washington suspect that Bannon may be weighing a presidential run of his own in 2028. A straw poll of attendees at the recent CPAC conference placed him second among possible Republican nominees, albeit a distant second to JD Vance. But Bannon dismisses the speculation. "I'm not running for president," he tells me. He's all in for Trump to serve a third term. He's cagey on how he plans to make that happen, but he says he's working on it with legal experts he declines to name. One possibility, he says, is a so-called Article V convention, in which delegates could propose amendments to the Constitution requiring ratification by at least 38 states.

Bannon believes that another run by Trump — his fourth — would be his biggest victory ever. "I think he does better in 2028," Bannon says. The president, he predicts, would take three states he failed to win in 2024: Minnesota, New Hampshire, and New Mexico, the latter delivered by Trump's rising support from Latino voters.

If Trump can't or won't run, I ask, will you support Vance? Bannon pointedly refuses to anoint the vice president as Trump's rightful heir. If the president is not the nominee, Bannon says, he will favor an open primary for the Republican nomination.

It's time for War Room. Throughout our conversation, Bannon has been relentlessly affable. But now, as showtime approaches, he barks at Will, his 21-year-old production assistant, over some unresolved camera issue. "I don't want bullshit," he tells Will. "I don't want spin." Will is clearly accustomed to such scoldings and takes it in stride. So, he has a temper, I scrawl in my notebook.

To look at Bannon and his happy-hour red nose is to think, drinker. And he was, in earlier chapters of his life in finance. But his "boozer" days ended, his younger brother, Chris, tells me, when Steve realized he could be far more productive if he laid off the sauce.

Most of today's morning show is wonky and kind of boring: an analysis of whether Democrats will shut down the government, an interview with economics writer Spencer Morrison about his new book, "Reshore: How Tariffs Will Bring our Jobs Home and Revive the American Dream." But Bannon concludes the show with a spectacular detonation: an unscripted, full-throated rant over "the $350 billion of your money" — he repeats the number several times — that the United States has spent to help Ukraine combat Russia's invasion. Bannon shows a MSNBC clip of Washington Post columnist David Ignatius defining America's national interest as keeping Ukraine "European" and out of Putin's clutches.

"This is insanity!" Bannon bellows. "We don't give a damn about whether Ukraine is European!" Ignatius, he declares, "is the spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency." And the liberal media, as always, is the true enemy. "There's blood on the hands of MSNBC!" Bannon thunders.

The show over, Bannon immediately becomes subdued again. As we chat on the terrace, I call him out on the $350 billion figure, which Trump also uses. It's a fake number — an exercise in raw demagoguery. On this very day, Trump's own State Department is releasing a statement saying the United States had provided $66.5 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since Russia's 2022 invasion, and about another $20 billion has been disbursed in other aid.

Bannon shrugs. Whatever the correct number is, he says, it's a lot.

As unprecedented as it is to have someone with a felony conviction serving as president of the United States, it's equally rare to have a leading political strategist who has spent time behind bars on the president's behalf. Bannon was released in October after completing a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress at a low-security prison in Danbury, Connecticut. In February, he pled guilty to defrauding donors who contributed over $20 million to build a border wall, but received no jail time. He's extremely proud to have served time. Sitting in his comfy living room armchair, he takes his hands off his ample belly and points to his black sneakers. "These are my prison shoes," he tells me. "I wear them every day."

I ask him what prison was like. "Yeah, I don't want to talk about it too much," he says. "Too personal."

Then he proceeds to talk about it. He wasn't sent to a "camp," he stresses, but to a true prison, "massively overcrowded" with hardened drug offenders. Standing in line one day to return to his cellblock, he saw a prisoner shanked in the rib cage, his skin ripped open, "blood everywhere. It turns out he was a rat."

Bannon's military training, including his time on a cramped Navy destroyer, helped him get through the confines of prison life. No one threatened him, he tells me. "You've got to be very tough. My attitude was just like my attitude every day. I don't give two fucks. And you're not going to fuck with me. Right?"

It wasn't all grim survival mode. Bannon, a graduate of Georgetown's School of Foreign Service and the Harvard Business School, was asked to teach a class. So the man who tried to stage an insurrection offered a course on the rule of law. "We went back to the founding documents of the country," he says. He had his students read Alexander Hamilton's "Report on Manufactures" — dear to Bannon's heart for its appeal to turn the United States into an industrial powerhouse "independent" of foreign nations.

"It's interesting," he says of his course. "They had seats for 25. My class always had 50 people in it. It was oversubscribed. These people thirst for this information."

In prison, he also tried to convince viewers of the "White TV"— the Black prisoners controlled a second screen, the Hispanics a third — to watch MSNBC. No dice. They insisted on Fox News.

He was released a week before Trump's victory. "I came out more empowered than ever," Bannon says. "Tougher, more focused," he stresses. "Your dedication has to be to the mission."

Bannon works virtually around the clock. On the second day of our time together, I join him in the War Room for the cold open at 7 a.m. He fell asleep at 9 p.m. after watching MSNBC, he tells me, and has been up since 1 a.m.

"War Room," which often cracks the list of top 10 politics podcasts on Apple, is a platform for conspiracy theorists. The flamboyant election denier Mike Lindell advertises his MyPillow products on the show. On this morning's episode, Mary Holland, an ally of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., attacks the measles vaccine as potentially dangerous to children, even as a measles outbreak in Texas has already killed an unvaccinated 6-year-old. "Fuck no, not in a zillion years," Bannon tells me, when I ask whether he took the COVID vaccine. "Poison." I push back, but he dismisses me as a brainwashed tool of Big Pharma. "Bobby is doing a great job," he says. His other guests today include Jack Posobiec, who spread the lie that Democratic bigwigs were operating a pedophilia ring out of a Washington pizza parlor, and Laura Loomer, who shared a video claiming 9/11 was an "inside job." Spotify banned the show in 2020 and YouTube in 2021.

Later, after his afternoon show, Bannon repairs to his armchair. He looks fried, and says as much. I tell him I can't tell when he's serious with his routines and when he's just acting up, to troll the libs. He denies he does anything as a troll. Yes, he assures me, he is serious about having the J6 Choir — a music group composed of insurrectionists turned prisoners — perform at the Kennedy Center. He'd like to have all of the J6 families there, seated in the "elite boxes," and he's hopeful Trump would attend.

Then we come back to Musk. In February, the Times reported, Trump ordered Bannon to halt the attacks on Musk and said he wanted the two men to meet privately and work out their differences. I ask Bannon whether Trump is trying to referee between him and Elon. No, he says, Trump has more important things to do. Musk, returning fire, has lashed out at Bannon, calling him "a great talker, but not a great doer."

I tell Bannon that I get his dispute with Musk over the H-1B visa program, which Bannon sees as a globalist scam that denies rightful jobs to American workers. But what, in his mind, accounts for Musk's evilness?

"He's a transhumanist," Bannon says. "Elon's piece is tied with actually taking your phone and putting it inside your brain."

Transhumanism is an intellectual movement that advocates enhancing humans through technology, in order to protect them against existential crises ranging from pandemics to artificial intelligence. Musk has said the ultimate aim of his brain chip company Neuralink — which today focuses on helping quadriplegics control computers with their thoughts — is to merge humans with AI so the species doesn't get "left behind."

Bannon believes we are unprepared for a near future when humanity is divided between those who have a brain-enhancing chip and those who don't. "It is a massive, massive leap for humankind," he tells me, "and we won't be the same people on the other side. We're not ready as a society, we're not ready as a culture." He rises from the chair and hands me a book on the coffee table. "Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War Against Humanity." It was published by War Room Books, an imprint of Skyhorse, in 2023. The tome, which features a forward from Bannon, accuses the "cyborg savior Elon Musk" of being the embodiment of "satanism with a brain chip." Bannon, like Musk, is a disrupter — but he draws the line, apparently, at disrupting God.

Afew days after I depart Arizona, Bannon texts me. If I want to understand "War Room" and his leadership style, he tells me, I need to watch "Twelve O'Clock High," a 1949 World War II movie starring Gregory Peck as Brig. Gen. Frank Savage. In it, Savage assumes command of a bomber group and whips the demoralized soldiers into men, placing the needs of the mission above the well-being of any individual trooper He goes on hazardous bombing runs himself. But his zeal comes at a cost: By the end of the movie, he suffers a mental breakdown. "Gen. Savage turns out to be human," I say to Bannon. "Frail."

"He did exactly what he had demanded from his men," Bannon replies. "No exemption. It broke him — as he knew it would if you commit to 'maximum' effort."

I suggest to Bannon that his method is the inverse of Carl von Clausewitz's famous dictum, that war is a continuation of politics by other means. In Bannon's world, politics is the continuation of war by other means.

"Nailed it," he responds. And for Bannon, the battles, the shifting alliances, never seem to cease. Where Bessent is "my guy," Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, the former chief of Cantor Fitzgerald, is the "crazy man," he tells me. It seems one is either with Bannon or against him.

Bannon derives his power, ultimately, from two sources. The first is the following he commands among his "War Room" posse, as he calls his followers. But it's possible his legions aren't prepared to follow him into every battle. He wants the United States to go to war, if need be, to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion — a position directly at odds with his overriding imperative to put an end to America's global empire. Yet a recent poll found that barely a third of Republicans would support sending US troops to Taiwan. Bannon may be ready to lead the charge, but he's likely to find himself with few troops at his disposal.

The second source of Bannon's power stems from his ability to influence the man he went to prison to protect. As Bannon sees it, he is winning his war for populism. Tariff walls are going up; federal programs are coming down; America First is the slogan of the hour. But plenty remains to be done, and Trump may prove an obstacle to some of his goals. Bannon doesn't just want to kill the H-1B visa program; he aims to impose a moratorium on all legal immigration, a stance Trump has not embraced. The president also appears poised to deepen America's involvement in Ukraine, through a minerals deal that Bannon opposes and a possible acquisition of its power plants. I mention a news report that the Democratic Republic of Congo offered Trump access to minerals of value to Musk and other high-tech barons, in exchange for US military help to put down an internal rebellion. A good idea, I ask Bannon? "No," he says.

Yet Bannon insists that Trump is a truly transformational president, on par with Washington and Lincoln. On our second day, after he finishes the morning podcast, Bannon heads to the kitchen, where he brews big cups of espresso and toasts bagels for the two of us. As we eat standing up, he tells me of his first meeting with Trump, back in 2010. At the time, with Barack Obama still in his first term, Trump was mulling a presidential run. Bannon, eager to advance the cause, walked Trump through the history of American populism — only to have the future president offer a correction.

The word is "popularism," Trump said.

No, Bannon explained, it's populism.

But Trump, who liked his own rendition better, would not be moved.

Paul Starobin is the author of "Putin's Exiles: Their Fight for a Better Russia."

• Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said her net worth was less than $500,000.
• She said her only income is her congressional salary, and she doesn't own a home or trade stocks.
• Commenters on X reacted to her wealth with a mix of shock, judgment, and reluctant respect.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she's worth less than $500,000, prompting a mixture of disbelief, criticism, and begrudging respect from commenters on X.

The New York congresswoman, often called AOC, discussed her personal wealth after an X user claimed she was worth tens of millions as a result of taking kickbacks.

The Democratic lawmaker said that the user was "completely making things up" and that she didn't trade individual stocks or earn any income apart from her congressional salary. "I don't even own a house!" she said in a second response.

Ocasio-Cortez worked as a bartender and server before winning a seat in the House of Representatives, which she's held since 2019. She earns the standard congressional salary of $174,000 a year.

Her financial disclosure form last year showed she had no more than $46,000 across her checking, savings, brokerage, and 401(k) accounts, and owed between $15,000 and $50,000 of student loans.

Forbes estimated Ocasio-Cortez's net worth last year at about $125,000 with most of her wealth in a Thrift Savings Plan — a 401(k)-style investment vehicle for government employees that doesn't have to be listed in financial disclosures.

Several X users said they disagreed with her progressive politics but appreciated her integrity.

@SpanglEdReAper, who has "GOD, GUNS AND TRUMP!" in their bio, wrote: "As much as I despise completely your political ideology and your methods, its true AOC is one of the few that is not taking kickbacks, or at least that we know of atm."

Similarly, @starbw_eth wrote: "I am not a fan of your politics, but I do believe you are ethical and trustworthy when it comes to your own personal corruption stance. I wish more congressional officeholders followed that same standard."

Meanwhile, others were surprised by the state of Ocasio-Cortez's finances.

"How do you make 174k per year and your net worth is almost nothing?" user @raphaellimasp wrote.

@coldhealing wrote: "Not being worth $500k at age 35 with a salary of $174k is not the financial strategy that we want to encourage in Americans."

"This is NOT a flex," @GuyTalksFinance wrote. "Someone get AOC a book on personal finance and budgeting."

Restoring a little faith

Thomas Roulet, a professor of organizational sociology and leadership at the University of Cambridge, told Business Insider in an email it was "reassuring" to see apparent critics of Ocasio-Cortez give her kudos for coming across as "morally and ethically consistent."

The reaction also speaks to the social-media-fueled polarization in politics where "everything triggers an outrage and there is no middle ground," and "politicians and leaders are either deeply hated or deeply revered," he said.

In Roulet's view, authenticity can feed polarization because "if you are true to yourself it makes you even more at odds with those who dislike you, but it connects you with your supporters."

Ocasio-Cortez, a vocal critic of corporate influence and corruption in politics, has previously posted on X about setting people straight regarding her finances.

In October 2022, she recalled someone asking her how she was worth $29 million and her replying: "Sir, I wish. My financial disclosures are public. I still owe ~$18k in student loans."

"I don't own nor trade individual stocks, accept no corporate money to my campaign, & live solely off my congressional salary (which requires us to pay for 2 rents out of pocket)," she continued in a second post. "All of this is publicly disclosed info. I save in a Thrift Savings Plan just like other fed workers."

Accusations of political corruption, many of them demonstrably false, have surged in recent days as Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has made government fraud and waste a hot topic online.

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

• Elon Musk wrote "Make Europe Great Again" in an X post on Saturday.
• Musk has used X to share support for far-right political parties in Europe.
• His remarks have drawn ire from political leaders, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Elon Musk continues to champion right-wing politics in Europe.

Musk shared an X post on Saturday that invoked President-elect Donald Trump's world-famous campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again."

"From MAGA to MEGA: Make Europe Great Again!" the tech billionaire wrote.

In a separate post, Musk said, "So many people in Europe lack hope for the future or think Europe is 'bad' in some way. Pervasive pessimism. This will lead to the end of Europe. Therefore, it must change."

Representatives for Musk did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Musk has previously promoted right-wing political parties and agendas in Europe, including in a December 2024 op-ed in a prominent German newspaper. The op-ed called the Alternative for Germany party — or AfD — the "last spark of hope for this country."

"The AfD advocates a controlled immigration policy that gives priority to integration and the preservation of German culture and security. This is not about xenophobia, but about ensuring that Germany does not lose its identity in the pursuit of globalization," Musk wrote. "A nation must preserve its core values and cultural heritage to remain strong and united."

That same month, Musk called German Chancellor Olaf Scholz an "incompetent fool" on X and suggested he should resign.

Musk owns a Tesla Gigafactory near Berlin, which has been the source of local tension. Last year, a clash between police and protestors, who said the factory's expansion would deplete local forests and water resources, broke out.

Thomas Zittel, a politics professor at Goethe University Frankfurt, told Business Insider that Musk's "motivation to comment on German party politics may be driven by his own experiences during the construction" of the factory. He added that there was "probably too much bureaucracy and regulation for his taste."

"After all, he thinks in terms of disruption," Zittel said.

Musk has also waded into UK politics. Earlier this month, he advocated on X for the release of Tommy Robinson, a far-right English agitator. Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, breached a court order not to repeat false claims about a refugee from Syria and was jailed last year. Robinson was sued for defamation over the claims.

Five days later, Musk shared a poll on X asking if America should "liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government."

Musk's comments have drawn criticism from political leaders across Europe.

Scholz responded to Musk's op-ed during an interview this month. "There are many people on social media who want to attract attention with strong slogans," he said. "The rule is: Don't feed the troll."

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer also discussed Musk during a speech without naming him this month. "Those who are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible are not interested in victims — they're interested in themselves," Starmer said.

• Pro-Trump tech leaders and MAGA loyalists are feuding over how to overhaul the US immigration system.
• A debate over visas for high-skilled workers intensified between the two groups in recent days.
• Trump recently appointed an Indian-born tech leader as a senior policy advisor.

President-elect Donald Trump's backers in Silicon Valley are at odds with his MAGA loyalists over a key issue: immigration.

In recent days, Elon Musk and others in the tech sector have voiced support for H-1B visas, which allow US companies to hire highly skilled workers from overseas. Their comments angered Trump backers who favor stricter immigration rules.

Musk's latest response to the backlash came late Friday in an expletive-laden X post. He said an H-1B visa allowed him and others to build "SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong."

"I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend," he posted.

Trump appeared to side with Musk on Saturday, telling The New York Post that he has "always liked the visas."

"I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I've been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It's a great program," he said.

In 2020, Trump authorized a freeze on visas, including the H-1B, in what his administration said was an attempt to reserve jobs for Americans amid the economic hardships brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The debate over H-1Bs began after Trump offered Sriram Krishnan, a Chennai-born, Indian American investor, a role as a senior policy advisor for artificial intelligence.

Krishnan, who recently lived in London while leading an expansion of the venture capital firm A16z, moved to the United States after graduating from college in India and worked at several tech firms, including Microsoft, Twitter, and Meta.

Criticism has largely come from anonymous social media accounts — one X post asked if anyone had voted "for this Indian to run America," prompting a defense from Trump's AI and crypto czar, David Sacks.

Krishnan's appointment has prompted a wider debate on the merits of H-1B visas.

Some tech leaders who have been deeply critical of illegal immigration have stepped up to defend immigration policies that allow high-skilled foreign workers to stay in the United States legally.

Musk said on Thursday his priority was bringing in top engineering talent legally — saying it is "essential for America to keep winning."

"Thinking of America as a pro sports team that has been winning for a long time and wants to keep winning is the right mental construct," he wrote on X.

"America rose to greatness over the past 150 years, because it was a meritocracy more than anywhere else on Earth. I will fight to my last drop of blood to ensure that it remains that land of freedom and opportunity," he added later.

Musk's co-lead at the Department of Government Efficiency, Vivek Ramaswamy, also took to X on Thursday to argue that tech companies often hire foreign-born engineers to avoid what he called an American culture that has "venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long."

"A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers," he wrote in a nearly 400-word post.

In a later post, he said immigration rules should be reformed more effectively to funnel talent to the United States. The H-1B system was not effective, he said, and "should be replaced with one that focuses on selecting the very best of the best."

Marc Benioff, the boss of Salesforce, also weighed in, offering a solution to keep the "best and brightest" foreign students in the US after graduation: "Can we staple a US green card to every degree earned at an American university?"

The pro-immigration messages haven't gone down well with everyone in Trump's orbit.

Matt Gaetz, the former congressman who was Trump's initial pick for attorney general, wrote on X Thursday that tech leaders should butt out.

When Republicans embraced them, he said, "We did not ask them to engineer an immigration policy."

Meanwhile, the far-right activist and Trump supporter Laura Loomer expressed opposition to H-1B visas and concerns over the "replacement of American tech workers by Indian immigrants."

Where Trump will land on the issue remains to be seen. Immigration lawyers have warned tech workers that a "storm is coming" and suggested that foreign workers with visas who have left the US should get back before Trump takes office.