Bannon or Musk, Who Will Trump Choose?

The MAGA v. Musk “Night of the Long Knives” is Coming

Elon Musk, who at one time supported Barack Obama, joined with Trump following the collapse of the DeSantis campaign in July 2024. Since then, Musk, after having given over $270 million dollars to the Trump campaign, has achieved a broad amount of power in the Trump court, involving himself in the choice of cabinet picks and policy decisions, seldom leaving Trump’s side with a residence at Trump’s Mar a Lago club.

To a large degree Musk, quickly replaced many longstanding leaders of MAGA who over the course of nine years demonstrated their loyalty to Trump up to committing a violent insurrection at his command. Many went to prison and lost their fortunes for Trump. The most prominent of these was Steve Bannon, the head of Infowars, and an engineer of Trump’s 2016 election victory.

Bannon has warned of the danger posed by Musk to the MAGA movement, especially regarding the rule of oligarchs and his distain for regular Americans. This weekend Bannon escalated his attacks Musk, attacks that began in early 2023 when he first called Musk a “traitor” who is “not even an American, and referred to Musk as a “total and complete phony” who is “owned lock, stock, and barrel by the Chinese Communist Party” due to Musk’s investment in China with his Tesla factory which produces about 20% of Tesla’s vehicles.

Likewise, Bannon and other MAGA influences have attacked Musk’s immigration policies which provide him and other tech billionaires with skilled workers from abroad to replace “more expensive” American workers who supposedly do not have the requisite technological skills. Bannon and MAGA are extremely anti-immigrant and do not like Musk’s importation of foreigners to take high paying American jobs.

In response, Musk has promised to go to war with Bannon and MAGA, and this weekend Bannon increased the vehemence of his attacks on Musk “Musk is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy. I made it my personal thing to take this guy down.” He continued by saying that Elon “should go back to South Africa.” He then added “Why do we have the most racist people on earth, white South Africans…making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?”

Bannon and Musk have laid down the gauntlet for each other. They both hate each other and envy the other’s relationship with Trump, and Trump might even be secretly egging them on. But in such a battle of egos the question is who Trump will support in the end, and with the invective rising at Trump prepares to take office, the decision might have to be made sooner rather than later.

In June of 1934, some 15 months after taking power, Adolf Hitler faced a similar dilemma. His closest collaborator and friend, a former Army Captain named Ernst Röhm was the head of the Nazi SA, the Sturmabteilung. Röhm was concerned that Hitler had sold out his Nazi Revolution to the German industrialists and elites, including the old line officers of the German Army, which Röhm wanted to be replaced with a “People’s army” built around hid four million strong SA, whose members were primarily working class men, many of whom had been Socialists or Communists, unlike the mostly middle class and professional members of the SS, or his industrialist financial backers. When Röhm talked of a second revolution or nationalizing businesses, the leaders of Krupp and I.G. Farben and other major industrialist backers of Hitler got nervous.

Röhm constantly reassured Hitler of his absolute loyalty and even sent the SA on leave in June 1934 to de-escalate the situation. However, other Nazis including Heinrich Himmler, the chief of the SS Schutzstaffel continued to stoke Hitler’s suspicion of Röhm and other opposition Nazi leaders including Gregor Strasser.

A large part of the issue was that men like Röhm and Strasser had decidedly socialist and populist leanings that were part of the original Nazi program. However, Hitler viewed socialism as mere cover for his nationalist program. Even before taking power, Hitler had secured the financial backing of leading German industrialists and bankers. Neither they or the German Army or President Hindenburg wanted the second revolution that Röhm, Strasser and the socialist leaning Nazis advocated.

As Hitler’s paranoia was stoked, he began to consider what to do about the ever more troublesome Röhm, the closest thing he had Hitler had to a friend, who ideas were now at odds with Hitler. Friendship with Röhm now took second place to power and the need to placate the industrialists and Army.

On the night of 30 June 1934, Hitler led the SS, aided by the logistics of the Army against Röhm and his senior staff at their holiday retreat in Bavaria, beginning what is now known as the Night of the Long Knives. As this occurred Herman Goering led the action against other SA leaders, dissident Nazis as well as opposition political leaders, and even Army generals, like former Chancellor, General Kurt von Schleicher. The official death toll given by the regime was 85 people, but estimates range as high as 700-1000 dead.

As for Röhm. Hitler gave his friend the choice of suicide or execution. After leaving for Berlin, Hitler sent SS Colonel Theodor Eiche, the SS Commandant of the Dachau concentration camp to give the ultimatum to Röhm at Munich’s Stadelheim prison. Ten minutes later, Röhm failed to shoot himself and Eiche and his adjutant entered his cell and as their aimed their weapons Röhm reportedly gasped “Mein Führer as each shot the defiant Röhm in the chest, killing him.

With Röhm‘s elimination the last Nazi with enough of a following and appeal to German masses that could threaten Hitler’s power was gone. The SA leadership was dead and the remaining SA leaders did not have the following of Röhm. Barely a month later, President Hindenburg was dead and Hitler declared himself Führer and Reich Chancellor, effectively merging his power has head of the Nazi Party and government. All military personnel and civilians servants swore a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler, replacing their oath to the Constitution of the Republic.

As Bannon, Trump’s most faithful and loyal ally and Musk, the South African interloper and his fellow oligarchs prepare to battle for leadership, the question is, who will Trump side with? Will he side with Bannon, arguably the most prominent MAGA leader other than Trump, or Musk and the oligarchs that dominate his cabinet? Will Bannon’s personal loyalty and friendship with Trump be enough, or will Trump, like Hitler, betray his faithful servant?

My guess is that Trump will side with Musk and the oligarchs and abandon Bannon. This might spark a Bannon/MAGA civil war with Musk, which will ultimately weaken the political position of Musk and maybe the oligarchs as well. I could be wrong and Trump might take Bannon’s side will attempting to mollify Musk and keep his movement together.

Personally, I hope that Bannon and Musk are allowed to fight it out so that completely undermines Trump’s control of his movement, and the GOP. I have no idea if that will happen, but authoritarian regimes are notoriously unstable, especially when competing factions are involved.

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Thank you so much for reading and I hope that we can grow together in the looming peril of the new year.