Donald Trump intervenes in Musk vs. MAGA visa row

Donald Trump sided with Elon Musk in a fight that foreshadows battles to come in the fragile alliance between tech bosses and Trump’s core voters, who view immigration as the top issue.

Donald Trump has backed ElonMusk over visas for skilled workers regardless of their race. Picture: AFP.

Donald Trump has sided with Elon Musk in a row over visas for foreign tech industry workers that had enraged the president-elect’s base.

Over Christmas a heated debate broke out on X between Silicon Valley bosses arguing in favour of H-1B visas, which they say allow US companies to attract top talent, and Maga influencers who say the system takes jobs from Americans.

Mr Musk, who used his wealth and influence to help put Mr Trump back in the White House, said he was willing to go to “war” over the issue and criticised some opponents as “hateful, unrepentant racists”.

Now, Mr Trump has backed Mr Musk in a fight that may foreshadow battles to come in the fragile Maga alliance between tech industry bosses and the president-elect’s core voters, who view immigration as the top issue.

“We need to make sure that you get ahead purely as a function of your talent and hard work. Nothing else.”

— Elon Musk pic.twitter.com/w0rUhR2CS9

— ELON FACTS (@ElonFactsX) December 29, 2024

“I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favour of the visas. That’s why we have them,” Mr Trump told the New York Post. “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.”

Mr Trump has not always seemed so enthusiastic on the H-1B visa, which grants permission to work in the US for skilled workers, usually in the tech sector. About 75 per cent of applicants are Indian, NBC News said.

Mr Trump promised to end the program in March 2016, before he was elected for the first time.

“The H-1B program is neither high-skilled nor immigration: these are temporary foreign workers, imported from abroad, for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay,” he said at the time. He was “totally committed to eliminating rampant, widespread H-1B abuse”. Mr Trump restricted the visas during his first term.

Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur who will run the Department of Government Efficiency with Mr Musk, infuriated Mr Trump’s grassroots supporters last week when he suggested that the US was failing to produce engineers for cultural reasons.

“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” he said.

Mr Musk also incurred the wrath of Maga influencers. Once he used the H-1B visa himself to stay in the US as a young tech industry worker.

“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,” he said referring to his companies.

Steve Bannon, a former Mr Trump adviser and important Maga influencer, hit back at Mr Musk on his Bannon’s War Room show. “You’re a man child,” Bannon said. He also accused Silicon Valley bosses of wanting “tech feudalism”.

The Times