Bannon Goes Off On Musk Over “Social Credit Score” Changes On X

To say Steve Bannon is not a fan of Elon Musk would be putting it lightly.

In 2023, the former White House chief strategist suggested that Musk is a “total and complete phony,” who is “owned lock, stock, and barrel by the Chinese Communist Party.”

Then last week, after Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy sparked a firestorm of criticism over H-1B visas, Bannon said that Musk and other tech companies utilizing H-1B labor “want a tech feudalism.”

And on Saturday, Bannon suggested that Musk has “masters in Beijing” during a Sunday episode of WarRoom in which Bannon discussed Musk’s decision to change the algorithm on X to reduce “negativity.”

“This is the CCP. This is a social credit score,” said Bannon, adding “He’s got a glass jaw…he’s got the maturity of an 11-year-old. It’s obvious, he can’t take criticism.”

Musk’s Hypocrisy: X will Alter Algorithm to Suppress “Negativity,” Joe Allen Reports @JOEBOTxyz pic.twitter.com/bV4BfWLy5s

— Bannon’s WarRoom (@Bannons_WarRoom) January 4, 2025

“One of his weaknesses is that he needs to be loved. He needs the masses to love him. He needs the masses to love him, you can tell when he’s on the stage, he needs that glory.”

Bannon then circled back on the H-1B visa debate for which Musk started catching major shit from the right.

“So then when his apparatus turns against him, and particularly people that cheered him who said ‘hey, we hate what you’re doing to this country, we know now that you’re lying to us, bald-faced lie, these are not high-skilled people,’ and they turn, all of a sudden, he has to go to what is a Chinese credit score,” he continued.

“They have a digital ghetto. And to only have raised up what praises him. That is like the little boy’s mentally of ‘I want to be the superhero, I want to put the cape on and kind of skip around.’”

“It’s an absolute indication of immaturity, of not being able to deal with things as an adult. And that’s what you’re seeing being implemented on Twitter here,” Bannon said.

Musk’s decision to change the X algorithm to “maximize unregretted user-seconds” has not gone over well – particularly among the ‘free speech absolutist’ crowd, which recoiled in shock during the H-1B visa debate when those critical of the program found themselves demonetized or outright banned from the platform.

Algorithm tweak coming soon to promote more informational/entertaining content. We will publish the changes to @XEng.

Our goal is to maximize unregretted user-seconds. Too much negativity is being pushed that technically grows user time, but not unregretted user time.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 4, 2025