American media executive and political strategist (born 1953)
This article is about the American alt-right political activist and strategist. For the American progressive political writer and blogger, see Steve Benen.
Bannon was an officer in the United States Navy between 1977 and 1983, then worked for two years at Goldman Sachs as an investment banker. In 1993, he became acting director of the research project Biosphere 2. He was an executive producer on 18 Hollywood films from 1991 to 2016. In 2007, he co-founded Breitbart News, a website which he described in 2016 as "the platform for the alt-right".[a] In the mid-2010s, Bannon was a vice president of Cambridge Analytica, a firm that collected data on millions of Facebook users, without their informed consent, for use in Trump’s campaign and Brexit, in some cases spreading fake news. Later knowledge of this data breach prompted the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
In 2020, Bannon and others were arrested on federal charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering connected to the We Build the Wall fundraising campaign. According to the indictment, the defendants promised contributions would go to building a U.S.–Mexico border wall, but instead enriched themselves. Bannon plead not guilty.[26] Trump pardoned Bannon, sparing him from a federal trial, but did not pardon his codefendants.[27][28][29] Federal pardons do not cover state offenses, and in 2022, Bannon was charged in New York state court with fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy in connection with the campaign.[2][30] In February 2025, Bannon plead guilty to fraud and was sentenced to three years of conditional discharge.[31][32] Bannon refused to comply with a subpoena from the Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, so was indicted by a federal grand jury on criminal charges of contempt of Congress. In July 2022, he was convicted and sentenced to four months in prison and a $6,500 fine.[33][3][34][35] After losing his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, Bannon surrendered to a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, where he was imprisoned July – October 2024.[36][37]
Stokols, Eli (October 13, 2016). "Trump fires up the alt-right". Politico. Arlington, VA. Archived from the original on October 13, 2016. Retrieved June 14, 2022. ... the unmistakable imprint of Breitbart News, the 'alt-right' website...
"The rise of the alt-right". The Week. October 1, 2016. Archived from the original on October 9, 2016. Retrieved February 20, 2020. Another major alt-right platform is Breitbart.com, a right-wing news site...
Rahn, Will (2016). "Steve Bannon and the alt-right: a primer". CBS News. Archived from the original on May 8, 2019. Retrieved April 16, 2020. Bannon's Breitbart distinguished itself from the rest of the conservative media in two significant ways this cycle... The second was through their embrace of the alt-right...
^Corn, David; Vicens, AJ (November 18, 2016). "Here's Evidence Steve Bannon Joined a Facebook Group That Posts Racist Rants and Obama Death Threats". Mother Jones. Archived from the original on February 1, 2021. Retrieved July 9, 2018. This Facebook group is for an outfit called Vigilant Patriots, which claims its goals are defending and upholding the Constitution and preserving "our history and culture". As of Friday morning, it listed nearly 3,600 members, including Stephen Bannon, who apparently joined the group seven years ago.
^Cite error: The named reference bannonreleased was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).