Washington Call it a pig pile, a food fight, or even a very uncivil war.
In recent days, the MAGA world has been shaken by a debate among some of President-elect Donald Trump’s most ardent followers on whether his incoming administration should permit more highly trained foreign labour to enter the country at the expense of American workers.
The beef is particularly awkward—or delicious, depending on your point of view—because it revolves around Trump’s D.O.G.E. pair of tech billionaires, Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk. Additionally, Musk’s X platform, which serves as the unofficial public square for Trump’s whole Make America Great Again campaign, is where the majority of the fight is occurring.
The richest man in the world, Musk, and Ramaswamy, who is reported to be worth $1 billion from his pharmaceutical company Roivant Sciences, are on one side. According to recent writings by the two and other venture capitalists, America needs more highly trained people to enter the country through the so-called H-1B program.
They contend that in order to draw in international talent for innovation and competitiveness in the technological sectors, the temporary work visa program urgently needs to be expanded.
Some of Trump’s more traditional hardline conservative supporters, on the other hand, believe that the country’s reliance on hiring foreign workers is a betrayal of American citizens, given that immigration was a key campaign platform that helped Trump win the presidency in November.
More: Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are appointed by Trump to head the new “Department of Government Efficiency.”
They contend that when billionaires like Musk and Ramaswamy advocate for bringing in more workers through H-1B rather than investing in educating and preparing Americans for those sought-after occupations, it also goes against Trump’s “America First” goal and promised crackdown on immigration.
Musk, Ramaswamy, and other players have been trending on X in the days after the fight started, making it one of the first arguments amongst parts of Trump’s MAGA constituency since the end of the 2024 election.
In question is the H-1B program, which, according to the Department of Labour, applies to companies looking to engage “nonimmigrant aliens as workers in speciality occupations” that call for “highly specialised knowledge” and at least a bachelor’s degree from college. Employers “who cannot otherwise obtain needed business skills and abilities from the U.S. workforce by authorising the temporary employment of qualified individuals” from outside the country are the target of H-1B, according to the government agency.
When asked if the president-elect was picking sides in the H-1B dispute, Trump’s transition staff remained silent. However, USA TODAY was directed to an X post from Stephen Miller, Trump’s long-time immigration policy advisor, on Thursday. The post referenced a 2020 Trump speech that praised the “miraculous story” of all the American heroes who created the nation from the ground up.
What caused the conflict?
Trump’s appointment of Silicon Valley veteran Sriram Krishnan as his senior policy advisor for artificial intelligence within the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy on Sunday escalated the dispute.
Krishnan arrived in the United States in 2007 after being born and raised in India. He has apparently helped Musk redesign X, previously Twitter, when Musk purchased it for $44 billion in 2022. More recently, he has been an associate of Musk’s.
After MAGA hardliners revived two recent X posts in which he seemed to support extending H-1B and even lifting the existing 7% cap that has resulted in massive backlogs in nations like China and India with large pools of highly trained workers clamouring for U.S. jobs, Krishnan started to face harsh criticism.
On November 14, Krishnan said, “Anything to remove country caps for green cards / unlock skilled immigration would be huge.”
“Simple logic – we need the best, regardless of where they happen to be born,” Krishnan said when asked that same day by an X user if “country caps … might backfire.”
On Christmas Day, Musk made himself a lightning rod for the MAGA detractors by claiming that in order to draw in “super talented engineers AND super motivated” workers, tech businesses should increase the number of visas they issue.
In one of his numerous X posts on the subject, which was viewed by 9.1 million times, Musk stated, “It comes down to this: do you want America to WIN or do you want America to LOSE?” “America will lose if you make the greatest players in the world play for the opposition. The narrative is over.
Some MAGA hardliners were particularly incensed by Ramaswamy, a first-generation American citizen whose parents were immigrants from India, for his claim that American culture “has venerated mediocrity over excellence,” starting in elementary school and continuing into the workplace.
That’s why “top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over ‘native’ Americans,” he wrote in a post on X.
Musk and Ramaswamy, whom Trump appointed six weeks ago to co-lead a new Department of Government Efficiency that will aim to reduce federal government expenditure, waste, and regulations, swiftly became the target of criticism when Krishnan was fired.
Given that their own businesses rely on foreign labour to function, several accused Musk and Ramaswamy, a former Republican presidential contender in 2024 and Trump opponent, of having a financial stake.
One of the X posters responded to Musk by saying, “This is code for: ‘I don’t want to shrink my current piece of the pie to invest in the engines needed to cultivate Americans who can do the job, develop the American human capital here for intangible long-term impacts, and instead import it for a lower cost and higher return now.
“The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low,” Musk said in response to a critic.
That led to Musk being attacked by detractors for suggesting that Americans were lazy in addition to lacking the necessary skills to work for him.
One responded, “Open a school.” “Our brains are here.”
Sean Davis, the CEO of The Federalist and a MAGA heavyweight, characterised the H-1B program as a sort of low-cost pool of indentured workers.
Because the employers, not the employees, own the visas, “corporations love H-1B visas because they allow the company to pay below market wages AND control the foreigners they hire—if a newly imported foreigner leaves the sponsoring company, he must leave the country,” Davis tweeted.
Steve Bannon, the former senior White House strategist for Trump, criticised Musk and Ramaswamy on his WarRoom podcast on Friday. “We’re not going to be some anarcho-libertarian (state) run by Big Tech oligarchs—that’s not going to happen,” Bannon stated. “We haven’t fought all these wars and haven’t gotten here to give it over to a bunch of geeks that you would stuff … in the locker in high school.”
Laura Loomer, a provocateur and MAGA ally, also intervened, claiming that Musk was unreliable on immigration matters due to his extensive commercial activity in China, which constituted him a sort of Communist state agent. The Chinese leader said, “We all know that you only donated your money to protect your friend Xi JinPing (sic) and influence immigration policy.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a long-time Trump ally, seemed to criticise “some big MAGA voices with large social media platforms throwing down their opinions” on Friday as Musk continued to dodge criticism, pointing out the “MAGA split over this issue.”
The Republican from Georgia, Greene, did not specifically mention either Musk or Ramaswamy. “Here in the U.S. to educate, build, and facilitate a solid foundation of knowledgeable, highly skilled, talented, well paid, AMERICAN workers,” she advised H-1B supporters.
What is said by Trump?
Trump ran as a staunch opponent of illegal immigration in 2024, but his views on the legal pathway for admission are less clear, particularly when it comes to green cards as a means of obtaining permanent status in the United States.
Trump has curtailed some access to foreign worker visas during his first term and has previously attacked the H-1B program. But in more recent times, he has hinted that he would be more receptive to hiring professionals from other countries.
Trump seems to be avoiding the current conflict thus far.
However, in a mysterious turn of events on Friday morning, the president-elect tweeted something that was left up for interpretation, with some people speculating that it was intended as a direct message to Musk.
As soon as the post went viral, there was a lot of conjecture that Trump was inviting his son X—short for X AE A-XII—and his largest campaign donor to return to his Palm Beach club and estate. The two have been there a lot as Musk assists Trump with his transitional actions following his election victory on November 5.
“Where are you? “When are you coming to the ‘Centre of the Universe,’ Mar-a-Lago?” Trump asks in the X post. Bill Gates asked to come tonight. We miss X and you! We will have a fantastic New Year’s Eve! DJT.
Regarding whether the message was intended for Musk, Trump’s transition staff remained silent.
