Trump chose to side with Musk in a December 28 New York Post interview in which he expressed support for immigration visas for highly skilled workers after a fierce debate that had been roiling his MAGA supporters.
“I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favour of the visas. That’s why we have them,” the president-elect told the paper. The H-1B visa program allows US companies to hire skilled foreign workers in specialised occupations. No more than 85,000 are issued each year and most are given to tech companies who bring in workers from Asia, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Conflict of interest
But online, the claws came out. Hardline, anti-immigrant MAGA supporters came after Trump’s wealthy tech supporters over the future of H-1B visas and the foreigners who benefit from them.
Some prominent Trump supporters, like conspiracy theorist and anti-Muslim activist Laura Loomer, said these visas were an open door to mass immigration. Others, like Musk, defended the visa program as a way to attract the “top 0.1% of engineering talent”.
The battle began in earnest when Sriram Krishnan, an Indian-American venture capitalist who previously worked for Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter and is said to be a close friend of Musk, was appointed by Trump in late December to be a senior policy adviser on artificial intelligence.
The move prompted Loomer, who is known for her unwavering support of Trump, to unleash an online tirade. She claimed on X that Krishnan wanted to “remove all restrictions on green card caps” so that foreigners could “take jobs that should be given” to US citizens, and that he loved “mass migration”. The Trump appointment, she added, was “in direct opposition to Trump’s America First agenda”.
Musk, who was born in South Africa, claims he was issued a H-1B visa before later becoming a US citizen. He responded swiftly and violently.
“I will go to war on this issue,” he wrote on X. The Tesla boss didn’t refrain from using profanities to attack his critics. “Take a big step back and F*CK YOURSELF in the face,” he wrote.
The great Republican divide
Steve Bannon, former White House strategist under Trump and a far-right influencer, stepped in and things escalated. Coming to Loomer’s rescue on his War Room podcast, he called the H-1B visa program a “total scam” and said, “we are going to get H-1B visas out, root and stem, and all the workers you brought in”.
“Just like we are deporting 15 million here, we want them deported – out,” Bannon said. “And give those jobs to American citizens today.”
Tech entrepreneur and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who will co-chair the Trump-proposed “Department of Government Efficiency” with Musk, took the opposite stance.
“Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence,” he wrote in a long X post that argued foreign workers benefit the US. “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 added.
As the online war over H-1B visas raged, Musk used one of the strongest weapons in his arsenal, according to Loomer. She said Musk removed her blue check mark on X because she “dared to question his support for H1B visas” and that she was now “demonetised” – in other words, no longer guaranteed a share of the advertising revenue generated by her most viral tweets.
On the left, Democrats seemingly revelled in what they called a “civil war” within the MAGA movement.
“It is both an ideological war and a war of influence,” said Thomas Gift, director of the Centre on US Politics at University College London. The expert recalled that Republicans have always been torn between taking advantage of cheap foreign labour, which allows US companies to minimise their costs while remaining competitive, and a more radical “nativist” stance – the belief that every job given to a foreigner would deprive a “native-born” US citizen of an opportunity.
“What is different is that in the Trump era, the debate is [being fuelled] by violent words,” Gift noted.
Walking the supporter tightrope
The two sides of the pro-Trump camp are also trying to figure out who will have the most influence on the future president. In recent weeks, Musk has been able to count on a parade of support from top Silicon Valley bosses at Mar-a-Lago. “There is no doubt that Big Tech leaders [like Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos] have addressed the issue of H-1B visas,” Gift said.
“Tech bosses who support Trump have wind in their sails at the moment, and the money to make themselves heard,” underlined Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy, a lecturer at Sciences Po Paris specialising in the United States.
“They have more of a class approach to immigration, as opposed to a racial approach, which is definitely the case for Loomer,” he added. In other words, for them, the “right” immigrant is not necessarily White, but absolutely must be highly skilled or already privileged.
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This division in Trumpland has erupted before the official inauguration on January 20. But “let’s not kid ourselves”, Gift said. “With the midterm elections in two years’ time, it is clear that most of the important decisions will be taken at the start of his presidency – so both sides are looking to make moves now,” he added.
Trump being in favour of H-1B visas “marks a change in his rhetoric”, Gift observed. For him, the president-elect is lying when he says he has always been in favour of the visa. “He has changed position several times, and in 2016 he even promised to scrap the program,” Viala-Gaudefroy added.
While the debate is a first win for Musk, it is one that could be dangerous for Trump’s base. Loomer and Bannon “represent a significant chunk of the voters that brought Trump to victory”, Viala-Gaudefroy pointed out.
The most radical MAGA factions will surely want to avenge themselves on the Big Tech bosses, and there will be no shortage of opportunities. “H-1B visas are just the first battle in this war of influence,” said Gift.
Viala-Gaudefroy predicted that another flashpoint will be China, “where Musk has major economic interests”. The X boss may even seek to steer Trump away from one of his key campaign promises, notably, imposing heavy tariffs on China.
This article was translated from the original in French by Lara Bullens.
