NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The big speaker on the first day of the Conservative Political Action Conference was supposed to be Steve Bannon.
President Donald Trump’s former adviser, who now hosts the popular “War Room” podcast is a man who is at home at the annual gathering of conservative activists. He’s gone year after year and, in 2024, his party was the hot ticket.
But Thursday morning, CPAC host Mercedes Schlapp had a surprise for the crowd. There would be an even bigger speaker: tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has been ripping apart the federal government in his powerful White House role.
Musk’s appearance, his first at the conference, underscored his role in the new center of gravity in the conservative universe, despite skepticism and some feuding from various conservative factions — including the populist corner occupied by Bannon and his allies.
Bannon, who spoke right after Musk, even joked about having the bad luck to draw the “card” to follow “the world’s wealthiest guy.”
Musk’s remarks were his first public event since he caused waves at a rally following Trump’s inauguration with a gesture that many compared to a Nazi salute.
Since then, Musk has been the most visible member of the president’s administration, going into federal agencies with his cadre of engineers — many of whom are young men with no government experience — and executing mass layoffs.
At CPAC, Musk did a live interview with Newsmax host Rob Schmitt. He came on stage wearing a gold chain and mirrored sunglasses, which he never removed while speaking. Javier Milei, the right-wing president of Argentina, presented him with a “chainsaw for bureaucracy.”
“I am become meme,” Musk said, opening what would become something of a rambling interview, during which he said DOGE was “fighting the Matrix” and advocated for establishing a live tour of Fort Knox, the legendary depository in Kentucky, so that Americans can see the country’s gold reserves.
While Musk wasn’t the most electrifying speaker at the conference, CPAC attendees still rallied around him.
Throughout the day, Musk was a main topic of discussion and top conservative figures — even those who had disparaged him just the day before — made efforts to kiss his ring on stage.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, Florida Sen. Rick Scott, Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt and House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana all praised Musk for his work with the Department of Government Efficiency, the newly created vehicle for Trump’s agenda.
Even Bannon put aside his beef with Musk for the day. In his speech right after Musk’s remarks, he praised DOGE’s cuts and called him “Superman.” Bannon also seemed to flash his own salute that was similar to one Musk used in January.
Afterward, at an event Bannon hosted in Washington, D.C., at Butterworth’s — a Capitol Hill restaurant that has become the new hangout for the MAGA crowd and where the line stretched down the block — he continued to speak in a more complimentary way about Musk, calling him a “genius engineer” in an interview with NBC News.
“You saw him today. He can’t really talk but, man, he’s ‘boom.’ He’s engineering, mathematics,” Bannon said.
It’s a starkly different tone from what Bannon has publicly taken in the past about Musk. Bannon has built a reputation for nationalist politics focused on American workers and for an anti-China crusade. He has railed against “technofeudalism,” stoking fears that a reliance on technology platforms is making serfs out of people who have no choice but to rent digital space. And while he has praised Musk’s federal slash-and-burn campaign and spending to elect Trump, he’s clashed with the billionaire titan and other tech figures, whom he has likened to oligarchs, over policies like immigration.
In December, Musk feuded with MAGA figures, including Bannon, who criticized him and other tech leaders for their support for the H-1B visa program, which gives temporary visas to highly skilled foreign workers. Trump eventually spoke out in support of the program.
In January, Bannon called Musk “a truly evil person” and promised that he would oust him from Trump’s camp “by the time he’s inaugurated.”
On Tuesday, the British outlet UnHeard published an interview with Bannon in which he reportedly called Musk “a parasitic illegal immigrant” who “wants to impose his freak experiments and play-act as God without any respect for the country’s history, values or traditions.” The following day, Bannon called Musk an “oligarch” who doesn’t “support MAGA.”
And he told NBC News on Thursday that Musk has “a big evil brain.”
Trump advisers acknowledge the public tension that has presented itself between Musk and Bannon, but they have largely downplayed the simmering feud.
“It is what it is,” a Trump adviser said. “We know both are on the team in various ways, I don’t think the boss cares that much about it as long as they are helping our agenda.”
The person noted that Trump at times actually likes to see his political advisers jockey for position, something he has been well known for going back to his first term in 2017.
“I don’t think he hates it,” the person said. “It’s an honor to be on the team, and sometimes sharp elbows are required.”
Nigel Farage, leader of Britain’s right-wing Reform U.K. party who had recently been involved in a spat with Musk over the tech mogul’s support of an anti-immigrant activist, also made a point of praising tech billionaire on stage Thursday, calling him a “hero of free speech.”
CPAC attendees also generally seemed to go along with Musk’s new positioning in the Republican Party, even as many had disagreements with or reservations about him.
“I do love Elon Musk,” said Carter Long, president of Xavier University College Republicans in Ohio, “and now is the time where we can kind of have these interparty debates and discussions.”
Long said that Musk and others put in “tremendous effort to win,” and now Republicans can figure out in which direction the party will go.
“If Musk can prove to be successful with DOGE and with these spending cuts and actually reduce the deficit without touching entitlements, I think that would be one of the greatest victories that any political movement in the history of our country could claim,” he said.
