TOI correspondent from Washington: President-elect Donald Trump threw his weight behind Elon Musk and his support for H-1B visas even as the hot-button issue continued to roil the MAGA-sphere over the weekend, boiling over into anti-Indian invective.
American nativists raged against big tech and Indian guest workers for purportedly exploiting the H-1B system to displace US-born graduates, as MAGA hardliners began directing their anger against even Indian-Americans and legal immigrants asking them to “go back to your country.”
Despite having previously said he is opposed to the H-1B visas, Trump stunned his MAGA base on Sunday by siding with Musk in the scorching debate, telling the New York Post “I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them.”
“I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program,” Trump added, even as MAGA hardliners exploded against “tech bros” like Musk, accusing them of hoodwinking Trump to enrich themselves with the argument that skilled foreign workers are needed to maintain American primacy.
Trump himself was outed for using guest worker visas, including H-1B, H-2A (which provides temporary visas for agricultural workers) and H-2B program (for seasonal workers in tourism and hospitality sectors) to staff his properties, prompting him to come out in support of the existing system despite having embraced MAGA’s “American workers first” fervor in the past.
During his 2016 Presidential campaign he had pledged to “end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program.” The promise was never kept although the first Trump administration tightened H-1B regulations as part of an “extreme vetting” approach that made it more difficult to get the visa.
Musk and other tech stalwarts have argued that the H-1B visa program is critical to ensuring US companies can find highly skilled labor across the world to maintain American primacy. “The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla, and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H-1B,” the South Africa-born Musk, who was himself a H-1B visa recipient before he became a US citizen, told critics on his platform X.
As the debate got more contentious and MAGA hardliners accused him and his “tech bros” of exercising outsized influence over Trump and misrepresenting the H-1B “scam” to enrich themselves, Musk exploded. “Take a big step back and F–K YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend,” he added.
MAGA hardliners, including Trump surrogate Steve Bannon, agent provocateur Laura Loomer, and commentator Ann Coulter among them, joined forces against Musk and the so-called Big Tech for betraying American workers. “Someone please notify ‘Child Protective Services’— need to do a ‘wellness check’ on this toddler,” Bannon, a former White House Counselor and Trump adviser sneered, even as Democrats and liberals appeared to enjoy the circular fire within MAGA.
Loomer, who has been banished from Trump’s inner circle, continued to take on Musk on his own platform X, accusing him of censoring her.
“Forget about immigration for one second. The biggest threat to our country, our freedom and humanity in the unchecked power of technocrat billionaires who have god complexes, access to defense contracts, and openly declare war against dissenters,” she wrote.