--- --- # _Seinfeld's_ Larry David Had Never Heard of Steve Bannon Before Trump by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Apr 24, 2017 9:56 PM UTC by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Apr 24, 2017 9:56 PM UTC After news broke that Steve Bannon got himself a stake in the hit show _Seinfled_ [and may even profit every time you watch a re-run of it, now the show’s funny creator, Larry David, is finally weighing in.](http://time.com/4573689/stephen-bannon-seinfeld/?iid=sr-link1) A [new story in _The New Yorker_ ](https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2015-steve-bannon/)looks back at Bannon’s time before he became President Trump’s chief White House strategist and was working in Hollywood, raising money for movies and television via a private fund. One of the deals he purportedly put together earned him a small stake in Castle Rock Entertainment, a TV production company, behind several TV shows, including _Seinfeld._ Bannon wouldn’t comment on the story, but it may have just been a lucrative move. According to _Bloomberg Businessweek_ he got “[a stream of _Seinfeld_ royalties](https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2015-steve-bannon/).” (According to _The New Yorker,_ Rob Reiner, who is one of the founders of Castle Rock, has said of Bannon’s profits from the show, “It makes me sick.”) Just because you make a deal doesn’t mean the talent has any clue who you are, though. “I don’t think I ever heard of him until he surfaced with the Trump campaign,” Larry David, _Seinfeld’s_ head writer and executive producer, told the _New Yorker_, adding: “I had no idea that he was profiting from the work of industrious Jews!” David wasn’t the only _Seinfeld_ staffer to weigh in, when the news originally broke, _Seinfeld_ star Jason Alexander tweeted about it: > [](https://twitter.com/IJasonAlexander/status/798953661577588736) David is not the only Hollywood star to have never heard of [Bannon](http://time.com/4575780/stephen-bannon-fourth-turning/?iid=sr-link3), though. “I never heard of him, prior to Trumpism,” the media mogul Barry Diller told _The New Yorker_. “And no one I know knew him in his so-called Hollywood period.” For fans of [_Seinfeld_ ](http://time.com/2954097/seinfeld-25th-anniversary/?iid=sr-link2) it’s unclear whether [Bannon](http://time.com/4738016/donald-trump-steve-bannon-breitbart-jared-kushner/?iid=sr-link6) is still earning profits from that deal. _The New Yorker_ surmises that the deal may have been “capped and paid out” as “neither CBS nor Castle Rock nor Warner Bros. has records of payments to Bannon” in recent years. Seinfeld Larry David Never Heard of Bannon Before Trump ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4752836/larry-david-on-steve-bannon/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4752836/larry-david-on-steve-bannon/"},"headline":"Seinfeld's Larry David Had Never Heard of Steve Bannon Before Trump","datePublished":"2017-04-24T21:56:58.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:43:04.303Z","description":"Thanks to an old deal, Bannon may earn cold hard cash on Seinfeld re-runs","url":"https://time.com/4752836/larry-david-on-steve-bannon/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Television","politics","celebrities","Seinfeld","Larry David","steve bannon"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Locker","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4752836/larry-david-on-steve-bannon/","name":"Seinfeld's Larry David Had Never Heard of Steve Bannon Before Trump"}}]}] ```