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The battle between Elon Musk and MAGA supporters over immigration has highlighted the rift between Donald Trump’s new supporters in Silicon Valley and his more radical base.
The rift over immigration policy and the visa system for foreign workers began with President Trump’s appointment of Sriram Krishnan, a former partner at Andreessen Horowitz, as senior policy adviser for artificial intelligence in the White House.
The move sparked a backlash from President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” group, which is based in the This led to a debate over the program.
Far-right activist Laura Loomer wrote in a post to “The high number of career leftists is alarming.” They were appointed to serve in the Trump administration if they shared views that directly opposed Trump’s America First policies. ”
Representatives from around the world participated in the debate with President Trump. Far-right activists have backed Ms. Loomer, who has supported the next generation, including Mr. Musk and David Sachs, whom President Trump has named as White House AI and crypto czar and who will work closely with Mr. Krishnan. He attacked technology company executives close to the president.
Musk, himself an immigrant to the United States, has expressed support for hiring highly skilled foreign workers. “There is a serious shortage of highly talented and motivated engineers in America,” he told X on Wednesday. “At the end of the day, do you want America to win or do you want America to lose? If you have the best talent in the world playing on the other team, America is going to lose.”
The split raises questions about whether two vastly different forces in Mr. Trump’s constituency — America’s most powerful technology executives and far-right activists — can coexist.
Top tech executives who have historically been targets of Trump’s ire have launched a charm offensive against the president-elect in recent weeks, donating to his inaugural fund and even dining with him at Mar-a-Lago. is strengthening.
“Big tech executives think they’re running things right now,” Loomer wrote in Thursday’s X. “At some point they’re going to (rubbing) President Trump the wrong way and it’s going to escalate. The clash between MAGA and the tech bros is going to be great.”
President Trump sided with technology advocates on the issue on Saturday. In an interview published in the New York Post, he said he had “always liked” visas issued to skilled foreign workers.
“I’ve always been in favor of visas. That’s why we have them,” Trump was quoted as saying.
“I have a lot of H-1B visas on my property.”
The online sparring put Musk in the spotlight. Mr. Musk assumed the role of Mr. Trump’s top aide after serving as one of his most vocal cheerleaders and fund-raisers during the presidential campaign. The president-elect has placed billionaire and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy in charge of cutting government spending and federal regulation.
In a lengthy post on X on Thursday, Ramaswamy said the U.S. needs skilled immigrants because it has a culture of “mediocrity over excellence,” prompting further backlash from MAGA supporters.
Musk on Thursday turned to a sports analogy to quell the online backlash. “Maybe that’s a useful explanation. What I’m saying is that for America to continue to win, it’s essential that we attract the top 0.1 percent of engineering talent through legal immigration,” he said. wrote to X.
“This is like bringing in the Jokic’s and Wembies of the world to help the entire team (mostly American!) win the NBA,” Musk said of the United States Basketball League’s foreign-born players. I mentioned the players.
Mr. Krishnan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Visas, including the H-1B program, are key to Silicon Valley’s development and will continue to be critical to sustaining America’s leading technology sector.
“H-1B is very important to Silicon Valley,” said Hiba Anbar, a partner at Ericsson Immigration Group. “There are multiple types of company-sponsored visas, but the one that most people are likely to qualify for is the H1-B.”
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The U.S. government admits 85,000 new beneficiaries each fiscal year. The rejection rate rose during Trump’s tenure as the first president, due to a policy that was later ruled illegal by the courts.
Unlike other visa categories, “you don’t have to be born in a specific country, you don’t have to work in the same company’s foreign office, and the evidentiary hurdles aren’t as high,” Amber said.
Attracting talent is critical for the U.S. technology sector in the race to stay ahead of China in technology development from semiconductors to AI.
“There were overwhelming comments from the executives I spoke to about the complexity of getting people here and how that hurts their ability to innovate,” Futuram said. Group CEO Daniel Newman said.
“If you look at the biggest breakthroughs in innovation, the skillsets, the engineering, the technology, they’re often started by people who came here on visas,” he added.
