MAGA vs Musk: Immigration Fight Cracks Populist-Tech Bro Alliance

There is populist outrage over immigration. Then there is the nuanced outrage offered by Elon Musk and his ilk over illegal immigration. This week’s furore highlighted how the two forms of outrage don’t always overlap.

Elon Musk and Sriram Krishnan are both friends and immigrants who became US citizens. Artwork: Emil Lendof/WSJ, Getty Images

It was, perhaps, only a matter of time before hostilities broke out in Trump World between the MAGA Internet Warriors and the Elon Musk Tech Bro Caucus.

The cause? Immigration. There is populist outrage over immigration. Then there is the nuanced outrage offered by Musk and his ilk over illegal immigration.

This week’s furore around venture capitalist/Musk friend Sriram Krishnan’s appointment to the Trump administration highlighted how the two forms of outrage don’t always overlap.

The civil war between pixel patriots took place, fittingly, on Musk’s social-media platform X between some of the loudest players in Donald Trump’s orbit, exposing that the echoverse that gave the world’s richest man so much influence with the president-elect isn’t in lockstep with him on everything.

The MAGA world fissure stems from an old tweet by Krishnan, an Indian immigrant, supporting the removal of the country cap on green cards for skilled immigration, the kind of issue backed by Musk and other Silicon Valley players.

“We need the best, regardless of where they happen to be born,” Krishnan, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, wrote in November.

Trump’s announcement on December 22 of Krishnan’s post dealing with artificial intelligence, which is unrelated to immigration policy, ignited a broader debate over who should be allowed into the U.S. for high-paying jobs in engineering.

🇺🇸 I'm honored to be able to serve our country and ensure continued American leadership in AI working closely with @DavidSacks.

Thank you @realDonaldTrump for this opportunity. pic.twitter.com/kw1n0IKK2a

— Sriram Krishnan (@sriramk) December 22, 2024

Adding to the drama is uncertainty over how Trump plans to deal with immigration once his term begins in January. Trump’s advisers have been drawing up plans to restrict legal immigration, although he suggested during a podcast with some of Musk’s friends that he would support automatically giving green cards to international students who earn diplomas in the U.S.

Online provocateur Laura Loomer, whose presence with Trump on the campaign trail ruffled feathers among supporters worried about her fringe positions, this past week quickly called Krishnan’s appointment “deeply disturbing.” That helped set off a social-media firestorm.

“Did any of yall vote for this Indian to run America?” a verified X user named

Donald Trump and Laura Loomer.

Nasescobar316 followed up Tuesday in a post that included Krishnan’s picture. The tweet, which racked up more than seven million views by Friday, was quickly added on by another one that read: “No matter what Sriram Krishnan says, he is INDIA First. No matter what the people around him say. Their only goal is to import more Indians to REPLACE American Workers.” Krishnan and Musk are both friends and immigrants who became U.S. citizens. When Musk, already the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, acquired Twitter in late 2022, he turned to Krishnan for help in getting his arms around the social-media platform later renamed X.

As part of Musk’s many changes, accounts, such as Nasescobar316, now pay to be “verified.” This can help amplify their reach and make them eligible for revenue share for posts that attract large engagements. In the name of free speech, Musk also reinstated high-profile users who had been banned under the previous ownership, including the accounts of Trump and Loomer.

Few things move the needle online like outrage, something Musk should understand. Almost a year ago, Musk began 2024 declaring himself “chief troll officer”. It was a designation he gave himself on X where he was becoming increasingly contentious and embracing billionaire populism that resembled Trump — before becoming a public backer this past summer.

Almost a year ago, Elon Musk began 2024 declaring himself “chief troll officer”. Picture: AFP

Illegal immigration became one of Musk’s frequent targets this year. He launched bombastic provocations of migrants coming into the country with “homicidal tendencies and cannibalism.” More than just being a political backer of Trump, Musk earlier this month showed how he can use his echoverse to wield power on Capitol Hill. He helped torpedo a spending measure negotiated by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, a move that threw Washington into chaos as Congress rushed to avoid a government shutdown.

It was an episode cheered on by the likes of Loomer and others who have embraced Musk’s coming role as co-head of the Department of Government Efficiency.

Musk’s argument for merit-based achievement and reforming the H-1B visa program for high-skilled workers doesn’t go over well with a group of people who profess to be worried about Americans losing high-paid jobs to foreign workers for the benefit of rich elites.

“There is a dire shortage of extremely talented and motivated engineers in America,” Musk posted on Christmas, one of many on the subject this past week as he joined other tech leaders in defending Krishnan.

One of X’s verified accounts responded: “Open a school. We have brains.” To which, Musk shot back: “If you need a school, you’ve lost already.”

There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent. It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 25, 2024

On Thursday, Vivek Ramaswamy, a former Republican presidential candidate and co-head of DOGE with Musk, weighed in with a 400-word tweet. He argued tech companies are hiring foreign-born and first-generation engineers because American culture “has venerated mediocrity over excellence.” He went on to say that Trump’s election marks what could be a “new golden era in America, but only if our culture fully wakes up.”

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…

— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) December 26, 2024

Predictably, Ramaswamy, the son of Indian immigrants, faced pushback.

“There is nothing wrong with American workers or American culture,” tweeted Indian-American Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador. “All you have to do is look at the border and see how many want what we have. We should be investing and prioritising in Americans, not foreign workers.” Later Thursday, Musk tried to clarify that he was talking about “bringing in via legal immigration the top 0.1% of engineering talent as being essential for America to keep winning.” Loomer wasn’t buying it, pointing to a public database of Tesla jobs proposed for foreign visa holders that pay less than $100,000 base salaries. “So you’re telling me that $70k per year entry level jobs are .1% level talent?” she asked. She followed with another post: “Nobody can afford to live off of $70,000 a year in today’s America. Stop crying about declining birthrates when you want us to live like a bunch of welfare queens.” As “Indians” and “H-1B” trended on X, Musk urged supporters to ignore Loomer. “There are many attention-seeking trolls on all social-media platforms trying to yank your chain,” Musk tweeted. “They win if you respond.”

The Wall Street Journal