--- title: Seinfeld Larry David Never Heard of Bannon Before Trump description: “I had no idea that he was profiting from the work of industrious Jews!” Seinfeld writer Larry David said about Steve Bannon canonical: https://time.com/4752836/larry-david-on-steve-bannon/ author: Melissa Locker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-04-24T21:56:58.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:43:04.303Z og:title: Seinfeld's Larry David Never Heard of Bannon Before Trump og:description: “I had no idea that he was profiting from the work of industrious Jews!” og:url: https://time.com/4752836/larry-david-on-steve-bannon/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Seinfeld's Larry David Never Heard of Bannon Before Trump twitter:description: “I had no idea that he was profiting from the work of industrious Jews!” twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # _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. ```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"}}]}] ```