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The battle between Elon Musk and Maga supporters over immigration has highlighted the divide between Donald Trump’s young supporters in Silicon Valley and his more powerful base.
The differences over immigration policy and visa plans for foreign workers stemmed from Trump’s selection of Sriram Krishnan, a former partner at Andreessen Horowitz, as a senior White House policy adviser. for artificial intelligence.
The move sparked a backlash from the X-based Make America Great Again, which quickly became embroiled in the debate over H-1B visas – a program aimed at foreign workers who with valuable experience in US technology groups.
Citing a post in which Krishnan advocated removing national caps for green cards to “unlock skilled immigration,” far-right activist Laura Loomer said. in the post at X on Monday that “it is alarming to see the number of retired people who have been appointed to work in the Trump administration as they share views against Trump’s America First plan”.
Representatives from all over Trump’s world joined the debate. Right-wing activists backed Loomer, who in turn attacked tech executives at the presidential candidate’s party, including Musk and David Sacks, whom Trump gave it to. designated White House AI and crypto tsar and intends to work closely with Krishnan.
Musk, himself a US immigrant, went out of his way to hire skilled foreign workers. There is a “severe shortage of talented and highly motivated engineers in America”, he said of X on Wednesday. “It comes down to this: do you want America to WIN or do you want America to LOSE. If you force the best talent in the world to play for the other side, America will LOSE.”
The split raises questions about how two very different wings of the Trump administration — some of America’s most powerful tech executives and far-right activists — will be able to coexist.
Tech executives, longtime targets of Trump’s ire, have ramped up wooing the president-elect in recent weeks, donating his start-up fund and dining with him at Mar-a-Lago.
“Big Tech CEOs think they’re running things now,” Loomer written in X on Thursday. “One day they will (point) Trump the wrong way and it will increase. The difference between Maga and technologists will be interesting”.
Social media turned their attention to Musk, who has taken on Trump’s secret role after becoming one of his most outspoken supporters. bank tellers during his presidential campaign. The president-elect has made Musk and former Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy responsible for cutting federal spending and government regulations.
To long post on X On Thursday, Ramaswamy said the move was necessary because of the American culture of “mediocrity over excellence”, prompting more tension from Maga supporters.
Musk on Thursday turned to sports metaphors to try to contain the internet’s explosion. “Perhaps this is a helpful explanation: I’m talking about bringing in the top ~0.1% of engineering talent as critical to America’s continued victory,” wrote to X.
“This is like bringing in the Jokic’s or the Wemby’s of the world to help your entire (mostly American!) team win the NBA,” Musk added, referring to players born outside the basketball league. of the US.
Krishnan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Visas included in the H-1B program have been key to the development of Silicon Valley and remain so in order to support America’s technology sector.
“H-1B is very important to Silicon Valley,” said Hiba Anver, a partner at Erickson Immigration Group. “There are more than one type of company-sponsored visa, but the H1-B is the visa that most people qualify for.”
The US government admits 85,000 new beneficiaries each fiscal year. Refusal rates saw a change under Trump’s first presidency, due to policies that courts later ruled illegal.
Unlike other groups of visas, “you don’t have to be born in a certain country, you don’t have to work in a foreign office for the same company, and the proof area is not high very”, Anver said.
In the race to stay ahead of China in technological developments, from semiconductors to AI, attracting talent is critical for the US technology sector.
“There’s been a lot of commentary from the executives I talk to about the complexity of bringing people here, and how that’s stifling their ability to innovate,” said Daniel Newman, CEO at The Futurum Group.
He added: “If you look at some of the biggest advances in innovation, skills, engineering and technology, they are often started by people who came here on visas.”
