The past couple of days have exposed a fissure in Donald Trump‘s coalition over H-1B visas, used by major tech firms and some major media congloms to lure highly skilled workers to employment in the United States.
“That pretty much sums it up,” Musk wrote on X on Thursday evening. “This was eye-opening.”
Musk was responding to a post in which an X user wrote, “So basically the right split into two factions, tech right and right right, and the tech right is like ‘hey we need h-1b visa people to do the jobs,’ and the right right was like ‘no you need to hire americans,’ and the tech right is like ‘but you guys are retarded,’ and the right right is like ‘well you don’t train us,’ and the tech right is like ‘you can’t outtrain being retarded,’ and while all this was going on we learned some people *really* don’t like Indians.”
Musk, himself an immigrant, also wrote that “maybe this is a helpful clarification: I am referring to bringing in via legal immigration the top ~0.1% of engineering talent as being essential for America to keep winning. This is like bringing in the Jokic’s or Wemby’s of the world to help your whole team (which is mostly Americans!) win the NBA. Thinking of America as a pro sports team that has been winning for a long time and wants to keep winning is the right mental construct.”
But the divide between Musk and other Trump-supporting tech tycoons and traditional MAGA came to a head on Thursday. That’s when Vivek Ramaswamy, who is partnered with Musk on a project to remake the federal government, posted on X on Thursday, “The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH: Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.”
He then turned to pop culture to make his point. “A culture that venerates Cory from ‘Boy Meets World,’ or Zach & Slater over Screech in ‘Saved by the Bell,’ or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in ‘Family Matters,’ will not produce the best engineers. (Fact: I know *multiple* sets of immigrant parents in the 90s who actively limited how much their kids could watch those TV shows precisely because they promoted mediocrity…and their kids went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates). More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of ‘Friends.’ More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less ‘chillin.’ More extracurriculars, less ‘hanging out at the mall.’”
Musk and Ramaswamy’s posts got quick pushback from MAGA figures like Laura Loomer, who complained that she was being censored on X.
The use of H-1B visas has long been a flashpoint among Trump supporters. During his 2016 campaign, Trump bashed the use of highly skilled foreign workers and, as the Florida primary approached, he cited The Walt Disney Co. as a case in point. The year before, some 250 Walt Disney World IT workers were laid off and their jobs transferred to foreign workers who obtained visas and were recruited by contractors. That said, Trump at times appeared to soften his view, saying at the Florida primary debate that “we have to have talented people in this country.” Disney at the time said that the incident got misconstrued because it was part of a reorganization, and many of the workers got hired back.
Yet the issue has continued to fester, particularly as Trump has continued to put so much focus on immigration in his presidential campaigns since then. What’s different is the support that Trump got from Silicon Valley figures during the recent presidential cycle, while they have not abandoned their business needs to recruit a highly skilled workforce.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) wrote on X, “I won’t have enough tea to sip nor popcorn to eat over the next 4 years! I’ve done countless interviews explaining that we need immigrants and that they contribute to our economy! Businesses blow us up about needing workers. And what do ya know?! MAGA got played & is mad at who?! The same 2 guys that they were just yelling was looking out for them last week as the government was on the verge of a shutdown!”