President-elect Donald Trump. — Reuters/File
President-elect Donald Trump has publicly endorsed the H-1B worker visa program, joining tech mogul Elon Musk and sparking a contentious debate among his supporters over the entry of highly skilled foreign workers into the United States.
“I’ve always liked the (H1-B) visas, I’ve always been in favor of the visas, that’s why we have them” in Trump-owned facilities, the president-elect told the New York Post in his first public remarks on the issue since it flared up this week.
An angry back-and-forth, largely between Silicon Valley’s Musk and Trump’s traditional anti-immigration supporters, has erupted in fiery fashion, with Musk even vowing to “go to war” over the issue.
Trump’s insistent calls for sharp immigration restrictions were central to his November election victory over President Joe Biden. He has pledged to deport all undocumented immigrants and limit legal immigration.
But tech entrepreneurs like Tesla’s Musk — and Vivek Ramaswamy, who will co-chair with Musk a government cost-cutting panel under Trump — say the United States is producing too few highly skilled graduates, and they fervently support the H1-B program .
Musk, who himself migrated from South Africa on an H1-B, posted on his X-platform on Thursday that luring elite tech talent from abroad was “essential for America to keep winning.”
Adding to the bitterness of the debate was a post by Ramaswamy, the son of immigrants from India, who deplored an “American culture” that he said venerates mediocrity, adding that the United States risks “letting our asses be handed over to us by China’.
That angered several prominent conservatives who supported Trump long before Musk vociferously joined their cause this year and subsequently pumped more than $250 million into the Republicans’ campaign.
“I look forward to the inevitable divorce between President Trump and Big Tech,” said Laura Loomer, a far-right MAGA figure known for her conspiracy theories and who often flew with Trump on his campaign plane.
“We must protect President Trump from the technocrats.”
She and others said Trump should promote American workers and further restrict immigration.
‘MAGA Civil War’
Musk, who had already angered some Republicans after leading an online campaign last week that helped secure a bipartisan budget deal, fired back at his critics.
On X, the social media site he owns, he warned of a “MAGA civil war.”
Musk bluntly cursed at a critic, adding, “I will wage war on this issue.”
That in turn provoked a salvo from Trump strategist Steve Bannon, who wrote on the Gettr platform that the H1-B program brings in migrants who are essentially “indentured servants” who work for less than U.S. citizens would.
In a pointed comment to Trump’s good friend Musk, Bannon called the Tesla CEO a “toddler.”
Some of Trump’s original backers say they fear he will fall under the sway of big tech donors like Musk and drift away from his campaign promises.
It was not immediately clear whether Trump’s comments would ease intraparty fighting, which has exposed how controversial changing the immigration system could be once he takes office in January.