“Musk is a parasitic illegal immigrant. He wants to impose his freak experiments and play-act as God without any respect for the country’s history, values, or traditions.” Steve Bannon doesn’t hold back when I meet him in the basement of his Washington townhouse.

The triple-shirted architect of old-school Trumpian populism, briefly a White House advisor during Donald Trump’s first term, has emerged as the counterpole to Elon Musk, whose ultra-libertarian agenda has come to dominate the President’s second term. To Bannon, the billionaire X owner is more forceful and, perhaps, more dangerous than any figure on the Left. “Musk is the one with power at the moment,” he says. “The Democrats are nowhere to be seen.”

Less than a month into the Trump presidency, Musk has established himself as a core fixture in the White House. He holds news conferences in the Oval Office with his four-year-old; hosts foreign leaders in meetings that strikingly resemble head-of-state bilaterals; enjoys access to virtually every federal department; and, most importantly, has the ear of the President.

Bannon, meanwhile, must settle for a microphone. The 71-year-old’s War Room podcast beams out to hundreds of thousands of MAGA ultras six days a week — despite being purged from platforms including Spotify. In his studio, stacks of old Financial Times papers, archival documents and recording equipment are strewn across the table, overlooked by countless religious icons and memorabilia. “We have not yet begun to FIGHT,” reads one sign on his mantelpiece, beside a wooden crucifix labelled “full armor of God”. Top of his agenda: a third Trump term.