A Trump World civil war has erupted over visas for highly skilled workers, pitting the president-elect’s new tech industry allies like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy against the anti-immigrant MAGA base.
The clash is a preview of the difficulties in keeping the Trump coalition together as his administration implements his immigration policy, which drove his 2024 victory.
While President-elect Trump has promised to end illegal immigration at the southern border and launch a mass deportation campaign, the latest debate concerns legal immigrants, exposing a larger, sometimes racist, anti-immigrant sentiment on the right.
Trump sparked the debate on Sunday when he announced the appointment of Sriram Krishnan as a White House policy adviser for artificial intelligence.
Krishnan quickly drew criticism for a November post suggesting immigration changes: “Anything to remove country caps for green cards / unlock skilled immigration would be huge.”
Far-right provocateur. Laura Loomer described Krishnan’s comments as “alarming,” accusing him of supporting foreigners’ ability to “come to the US and take jobs that should be given to American STEM students.”
The majority of the discussion centered on the H-1B visa program, which is an employer-sponsored visa for highly skilled professionals and is primarily used for computer-related and technical jobs.
Congress has limited the program to 65,000 per year, with an additional 20,000 for foreign professionals who earn a master’s degree or doctorate from a US college or university.
MAGA supporters argue that the visa program is used to undercut American workers.
Some of the online reactions were overtly racist towards Indians. By law, no more than 7% of green cards issued each year may be granted to applicants from any single country.
The vast majority of pending applicants come from India. Indian workers make up the majority of H-1B recipients, accounting for 72% of those approved in fiscal 2023.
Meanwhile, a wave of Trump supporters in the tech industry have expressed support for hiring highly skilled foreign workers.
Musk, who has become a close ally of Trump since the election, argued in a post on his social platform X that Silicon Valley frequently hires immigrants because there aren’t enough American-born engineers. The tech billionaire, who was born in South Africa, previously held an H-1B visa.
“OF COURSE my companies and I would prefer to hire Americans and we DO, as that is MUCH easier than going through the incredibly painful and slow work visa process,” the president of Tesla and SpaceX said. “HOWEVER, there is a dire shortage of extremely talented and motivated engineers in America.”
Ramaswamy, who co-chairs Trump’s new “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) with Musk, previously called to “gut” the H-1B visa program during his own presidential campaign.
However, he weighed in on the debate, blaming the lack of American-born engineers on American culture, claiming that it has “venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long,” citing pop culture examples such as the sitcom “Saved by the Bell” and characters Zach and Slater being “venerated” over the school nerd Screech.
His remarks were not well received by other conservatives. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley slammed Ramaswamy, claiming that “nothing is wrong with American workers or culture.”
“All you have to do is look at the border and see how many want what we have,” she wrote on the site. “We should be investing and prioritizing in Americans, not foreign workers.”
Other Silicon Valley conservatives, including venture capitalists David Sacks and Joe Lonsdale, have weighed in on the debate, arguing for increased high-skilled immigration.
Sacks, who is set to serve as White House czar for artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, defended Krishnan, emphasizing that he was calling for the removal of per-country caps on green cards, not all restrictions on green cards.
“Supporting a small number of highly skilled immigrants remains a popular viewpoint on the right. Sriram is certainly not a ‘career leftist’!” Sacks responded to Loomer’s comments about Krishnan.
Lonsdale, who has reportedly participated in DOGE planning efforts alongside Musk and Ramaswamy, stated that he is “against more low-end H1B immigrants” but believes the United States should “win at the talent game.”
Another type of foreign worker visa, the O-1 visa, is intended for “individuals with extraordinary ability or achievement” and has no cap, but it is granted to far fewer people each year than H-1B visas.
The main players attempted to smooth things over. Musk agreed with a post on X that said the H-1B visa system is used to bring in “brilliant engineers” but is also “poorly implemented and abused like crazy,” to which Musk replied, “Exactly.”
Sacks also appeared eager to bridge the growing divide, stating that he “completely” trusts Stephen Miller, the incoming White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, to handle immigration policy.
“What I oppose is a baseless witch hunt against a highly qualified American for a role as A.I. adviser,” according to him.
Musk, Ramaswamy, and Sacks are among a growing number of Silicon Valley conservatives who are preparing to join the incoming Trump administration after campaigning for him.
While Silicon Valley has long been regarded as a liberal stronghold, divisions emerged within the industry earlier this year as more tech executives, including former Democratic donors, backed Trump.
Musk, who invested at least $250 million in Trump’s campaign, has emerged as a key figure in the president-elect’s inner circle, in addition to his formal role as DOGE co-chair.
The tech billionaire played a key role in derailing a bipartisan agreement for year-end funding in Congress earlier this month, with some jokingly referring to him as “President Musk.”
Musk’s rise to prominence in Republican circles complicates matters for those who oppose him on immigration policy.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who will co-chair a DOGE subcommittee in the next Congress, echoed Ramaswamy’s call for a stronger workplace culture while also criticizing the H-1B program.
“Put down the selfie light, and go apply for a job and replace the H1-B visa holders and all the other skilled labor jobs that foreign workers are taking and American companies are desperately trying to hire,” Greene told X.
However, the relatively new alliance between MAGA World and Silicon Valley conservatives is already showing signs of fraying.
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), whom Trump tapped to be his attorney general before resigning due to an ethics scandal, claimed that conservatives did not ask tech executives to participate in immigration policy.
“We welcomed the tech bros when they came running our way to avoid the 3rd grade teacher picking their kid’s gender – and the obvious Biden/Harris economic decline,” Gaetz wrote on the newspaper’s website. “We did not ask them to engineer an immigration policy.”
Miller, an architect of Trump’s immigration policy in his first term, posted an excerpt from Trump’s 2020 Independence Day eve speech from Mt. Rushmore, which stated that “only America, no other place” could have produced icons such as the Wright brothers, the Tuskegee Airmen, Elvis Presley, and Muhammad Ali.
Ramaswamy attempted to find common ground with Miller, writing in a repost that this is “exactly the American spirit we need to revive.”
Trump, meanwhile, has remained silent on the subject as the debate has raged on X, instead posting on Friday about the death of attorney David Rivkin and the engagement of Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Ainsley Earhardt.
However, in 2016, Trump criticized the H-1B program, claiming that it imported foreign workers “for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay.” His first-term administration attempted to raise wage requirements for H-1B visas, but the rule was eventually overturned.
