Trump Backers, Including Elon Musk, Clash With Far Right Over Immigrant Workers and H-1B Visas

In the weeks leading up to President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration, his supporters are deeply divided over the status of immigrants and foreign workers in the U.S. labor market.

At issue is the extent to which the incoming government should be lenient, if at all, towards skilled immigrants entering the country on work visas.

The schism pits immigration hard-liners against many of the president-elect’s most prominent supporters in the tech industry, including Elon Musk, the world’s richest man. over a billion dollarsand venture capitalist David Sacks, who was elected czar for artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency policy.

The tech industry has long relied on foreign skilled workers to help run its companies, a labor supply that critics say undercuts wages for U.S. citizens.

The controversy erupted late Thursday into vitriol, recriminations and accusations of censorship online, leaving Trump in a policy dilemma. The president-elect has in the past expressed a willingness to provide more work visas to skilled workers, but has also promised to close borders, impose tariffs, create more jobs for American citizens and severely restrict immigration.

Laura LoomerThe far-right activist and ardent Trump follower sparked controversy earlier this week by criticizing Trump’s choice of Indian-American venture capitalist Sriram Krishnan as an artificial intelligence policy adviser. This quarrel. In a post, she said she was worried about the influence Krishnan, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in India, would have on the Trump administration’s immigration policies, and referred to “Third World invaders.”

“It is astounding how many career left-wingers are now being appointed to serve in the Trump administration that are in direct opposition to Trump’s America First agenda,” Ms. Loomer wrote on X, a social media platform owned by Mr. Musk.

Ms. Loomer’s comments exposed growing tensions between Mr. Trump’s longtime supporters and his broader base, who have embraced his virulent anti-immigration rhetoric. Recently Gained Tech Industry Supportersmany of whom founded or financed businesses that relied on the government’s H-1B visa program for hiring skilled workers from abroad.

In response, Sacks called Loomer’s criticism “rude,” while Musk has regularly posted this week about a lack of homegrown talent at U.S. tech companies to fill all the needed positions.

Musk tweeted on Thursday that the expertise needed by U.S. companies “simply does not exist in sufficient quantities in the United States” and drew a line between what he sees as legal and illegal immigration.

Throughout the election cycle, Musk has helped amplify a debunked theory that Democrats are displacing American voters by encouraging undocumented immigrants to cross the border to vote. A naturalized citizen born in South Africa, Musk has often spoken out against immigration, describing it as a threat to the country’s sovereignty and espousing messages that label non-citizens “invaders.”

This week, however, he strongly supported H-1B visas, which are awarded to specialized foreign workers. Mr. Musk has stated that he holds H-1B status before becoming a citizen, and his electric car company Tesla, Obtain 724 visa This year. H-1B visas are usually valid for three years, but holders can extend the visa or apply for a green card.

Krishnan, Sachs and Musk did not respond to requests for comment.

Loomer said on the call that she took on the visa issue because she didn’t trust the motives of Musk and other tech giants who helped elect Trump. She said she was particularly concerned that Musk would try to use his influence to persuade the incoming president to allow more immigration rather than close the border as she and others on the right wanted.

“Instead of making America great again, he is a drag on the Trump transition,” Ms. Loomer said. She said she believed Musk was using his relationship with Trump to further enrich himself. “Elon wants everyone to think he’s a hero because he donated $250 million to the Trump campaign. But that’s not an investment if it makes him a trillionaire.

A spokesman for Trump did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump said in a podcast he co-hosted with Sachs in June that any international student graduating from a U.S. university “should be able to stay in this country.” Recording was then carried out San Francisco fundraiser for Mr Trump’s campaign Hosted by Mr. Sacks.

Since then, leaders of tech companies that rely on skilled foreign labor, including Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Google’s Sundar Pichai courted Trump with phone calls, visits to Mar-a-Lago and donations to his inauguration. That’s a departure from Trump’s first term, which began with widespread industry condemnation of the Trump administration’s travel ban, which suspended visas to applicants from seven countries. The population is predominantly Muslim.

Technology leaders have also been taking Play an important role during the presidential transition Nominate assistants to high-level executive positions and advise the president-elect on potential policy and foreign relations. Trump also appointed Musk to serve as co-leader of the new “Government Effectiveness” Commission.

The tech leader’s growing importance in Trump’s circle is now drawing scrutiny from his supporters and even some past rivals.

Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who ran against Trump and called herself a “proud daughter of Indian immigrants,” blasted the tech industry and its leaders as “lazy” for automatically seeking out foreign investors.

“If the tech industry needs workers, invest in our education system,” she said Wrote Friday morning X. “Invest in our American workforce. We must invest in Americans first and then look elsewhere.

On Friday, Trump’s longtime confidant Stephen K. Bannon hosted a series of influencers and researchers on his popular “War Room” podcast who criticized “Big Tech oligarchs” for supporting H-1B program and views immigrants as a threat to Western nations. civilization.

Others are more sympathetic to Silicon Valley’s desire to continue bringing in engineers and other skilled workers from abroad.

Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who was appointed last month to lead government efficiency initiatives alongside Musk, has blamed American culture for creating people unfit for skilled technical positions.

“The H-1B system is deeply broken and should be replaced by a system focused on selecting the best people,” Mr. Ramaswamy said. say on X on Friday.

The hostile exchanges over immigration soon gave rise to another flash point on the right: online rhetoric.

Since acquiring what was then Twitter for $44 billion in 2022, Musk has described himself as a “free speech absolutist.” One of his first moves at the company was to reinstate accounts banned by previous management, including Ms. Loomer’s account, which was deleted in 2018 for anti-Muslim posts.

But on Thursday, X temporarily blocked Ms. Loomer from posting on the site and removed her verification status, cutting off her income from paying subscribers. Many other accounts also reported losing their verification status, although only Ms. Loomer appears to have been blocked from posting or monetizing her account.

Ms. Loomer said she was able to post again starting Friday morning but still had not regained her verified status.

A spokesman for X did not respond to a request for comment. Ms. Loomer, whose account has 1.4 million followers, called it retaliation, noting that Musk endorsed a post by a popular professional tech influencer on Thursday night that said “play stupid games, win stupid Award,” referring to Ms. Loomer. Loomer.

Ms. Loomer calls such restrictions “censorship.”