Tech mogul Elon Musk, who has become President-elect Donald Trump’s right-hand man, got into a heated spat with MAGA allies on Thursday over foreign worker visas, as well as Vivek Ramaswamy, co-chair of the Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE). Together they argued: Programs are at the heart of American innovation.
Billionaire DOGE bosses criticized Trump’s staunch supporters and other immigration hardliners the day after Christmas for opposing the H-1B program. The H-1B program allows highly skilled foreign workers to enter the United States for the companies that sponsor them.
“Bringing in the top 0.1% of engineering talent through legal immigration is essential for America to continue to win,” Musk wrote in I compared it to a team.
The world’s richest man agreed with Governor General Ramaswamy, who claimed that America’s “culture” celebrates “ordinariness”. This sparked an initial rift among members of the MAGA world who sought to limit even legal immigration to the United States.
“The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born and first-generation engineers instead of ‘native’ Americans is not due to an innate lack of American IQ (a lazy and misguided explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture.” Ramaswamy wrote in a lengthy post about
“Hard questions require hard answers. If you’re really serious about solving a problem, you have to face the truth.”
Ramaswamy then described how American culture, since at least the 1990s, has favored “prom queens over Math Olympiad champions” and “jokers over graduates,” allowing them to retain talented engineers from other countries, such as China. On the other hand, the United States lost. Top recruit.
“Our American culture has been worshiping mediocrity over excellence for too long (at least since the 90s, perhaps longer). It’s not about starting in college, it’s about starting young,” he explained.
“‘Normality’ is not relevant in a highly competitive global market for tech talent. If we pretend like that, China will get our asses handed to us.”
MAGA acolytes like Laura Loomer and right-wing firebrands like Ann Coulter and Mike Cernovich have countered that Musk and Ramaswamy are only favoring foreign labor for their own Silicon Valley needs.
Their criticism pointed to how the visas make it difficult for foreigners to quit their jobs and lower wages for American workers.
“American workers can leave their jobs. Imported H-1B workers cannot. Tech wants indentured servants, not ‘high-skilled’ workers,” Coulter said.
“This is why some people find this discussion frustrating. Elon is right on this matter. Others are right that the solution is flawed. We shut down the farm system and lost our bench. Big Tech did it. Now they want more H-1Bs for their self-inflicted wounds,” Cernovich added.
Loomer also trolled DOGE leaders in a series of posts, claiming that the
Nikki Haley, a rival in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, further criticized Ramaswami, saying, “There is nothing wrong with American workers or American culture. All you have to do is look at the border and see how many people want what we have. “We must invest and prioritize Americans, not foreign workers.”
Silicon Valley leaders see the H-1B visa as a boon to the industry. But the soon-to-be-elected 47th president took a stand against this policy during his first term, signing an executive order ordering federal agencies to favor a higher-skilled workforce. Higher-paying applicants strive to “end the theft of American prosperity.”
But Trump, 78, also wants workers to come to the United States legally, especially those with the necessary skills, and to “recruit and retain” top graduates to keep them from returning to their home countries. I said I wanted to. Millions of companies have been started there.
“I believe that when you graduate from college, you should automatically get a green card to stay in this country as part of your diploma, and that includes junior college,” Trump said on the All In podcast. In June, we will be joining Silicon Valley leaders.
Jason Calacanis, one of several tech investors hosting the podcast, asked whether the 45th president, if re-elected, would “commit to giving us more ability to bring the best and brightest talent from around the world to the United States.” .
