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A guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
The fight between Elon Musk and MAGA supporters over immigration highlights the divide between Donald Trump’s new supporters in Silicon Valley and his more radical base.
The disagreement over immigration policy and the foreign worker visa program stems from Trump’s appointment of Sriram Krishnan, a former partner at Andreessen Horowitz, as the White House’s senior policy adviser on artificial intelligence.
The move sparked a backlash from Trump’s “Make America Great Again” X base, which quickly escalated into a debate over H-1B visas – a program designed to attract the highly skilled foreign labor critical to U.S. tech groups .
Far-right activist Laura Loomer posted on shock”. Now, when they share views that are directly contrary to Trump’s “America First” agenda, they are being appointed to serve in the Trump administration.”
Delegates from around the Trump world joined the debate. Far-right activists have backed Loomer, who has in turn attacked tech executives surrounding the president-elect, including Musk and David Sacks, whom Trump has appointed as White House artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency czar and will work with Trump to Krishnan worked closely.
Musk himself is an immigrant to the United States and supports hiring highly skilled foreign workers. “The United States is desperately short of talented, motivated engineers,” he said on X on Wednesday. “It comes down to this: Do you want America to win or do you want America to lose. If you force the best minds in the world to play for the other side, America will lose.
The schism raises questions about whether two distinct factions in Trump’s constituency – America’s most powerful tech executives and far-right activists – can coexist.
Tech giants, historically targets of Trump’s ire, have stepped up their charm offensive against the president-elect in recent weeks, donating to his first fund and dining with him at Mar-a-Lago.
“Big Tech executives think they have everything under control now,” Loomer wrote on X on Thursday. “One day they will [rub] What Trump is doing is wrong and the situation will escalate. The outburst between Maga and the Tech Brothers will be glorious”.
The online spat has thrust into the spotlight Musk, who has assumed the role of Trump’s confidante after becoming one of his most outspoken cheerleaders and funders during his presidential campaign. The president-elect has put Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy in charge of cutting government spending and federal regulations.
On Thursday, Ramaswamy published a lengthy post on X in which he said skilled immigrants were needed because of America’s culture of “mediocrity over excellence,” sparking further backlash from Magga supporters.
On Thursday, Musk turned to sports analogies to try to quell the online backlash. He wrote on
“It’s like bringing in Jokic or Wimby from around the world to help your entire team (mostly Americans!) win in the NBA,” Musk added, referring to the foreign-born players in the American Basketball League. .
Krishnan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Visas, including the H-1B program, have been key to Silicon Valley’s growth and remain so in sustaining America’s premier technology industry.
“H-1B is critical to Silicon Valley,” said Hiba Anver, a partner at Erickson Immigration Group. “There is more than one type of company-sponsored visa, but H1-B is the one that the most people are likely to qualify for.”
The U.S. government allows 85,000 new beneficiaries each fiscal year. During Trump’s first term as president, rejection rates rose as courts later ruled the policies were illegal.
Unlike other visa categories, “you don’t have to be born in a specific country, you don’t have to work in a foreign office of the same company, and the evidentiary threshold is not that high,” Anver said.
Attracting talent is key to the U.S. tech industry as it races to stay ahead of China in technological developments ranging from semiconductors to artificial intelligence.
“Executives I’ve spoken to have made overwhelming comments about the complexity of bringing talent here and how that hurts their ability to innovate,” said Daniel Newman, chief executive of Futurum Group.
“If you look at some of the biggest breakthroughs in innovation, you’ll find that skills, engineering and technology were often initiated by people who came here on visas,” he added.
