Steve Bannon, the former adviser to United States President Donald Trump, resigned from the right-wing website Breitbart News on Tuesday after he criticised Trump’s eldest son in a book by author Michael Wolff.

In a short statement on its website, Breitbart’s Chief Executive Officer Larry Solov thanked Bannon for his contributions and said the company would work with him “on a smooth and orderly transition”.

In the book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, Bannon said the meeting between Donald Trump Jr, the president’s eldest son, and a Russian lawyer who claimed to have damaging information on Democratic Party’s presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was “treasonous” and “unpatriotic”.

The president had insulted Bannon when the book was published and called the author a fraud. “Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories to sell this really boring and untruthful book,” Trump had tweeted. “He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad!”

The president had said Bannon had nothing to do with him or his presidency, and he had lost his mind after being fired from the White House. This ended the alliance that began when Bannon joined the Trump campaign at a time it was floundering and helped him defeat Clinton, who was an overwhelming favourite to win the presidency.