In a contentious argument that split his traditional followers from tech titans like Elon Musk, Donald Trump chimed in on Saturday, stating that he supports a special visa program that facilitates the entry of highly talented individuals into the US.
In his first public remarks on the issue since it erupted this week, the president-elect told the New York Post, “I’ve always liked the [H1-B] visas; I have always been in favor of the visas; that’s why we have them” at Trump-owned sites.
There has been a heated back and forth between Silicon Valley’s Musk and conventional anti-immigration Trump supporters. Musk has even threatened to “go to war” over the matter.
Trump’s adamant demands for drastic immigration restrictions played a major role in his election triumph over Joe Biden in November. Trump has promised to restrict legal immigration and deport all undocumented immigrants.
However, tech entrepreneurs like Elon Musk of Tesla and Vivek Ramaswamy, who will co-chair a government cost-cutting council with Musk, argue that the US generates too few highly trained graduates and are strong supporters of the H1-B program.
Musk, who immigrated from South Africa on an H1-B visa, wrote on his X platform Thursday that it was “critical for America to keep winning” to attract top engineering talent from elsewhere.
A tweet by Ramaswamy, the son of Indian immigrants, fueled the controversy. He lamented an “American culture” that, in his words, glorifies mediocrity and warned that the US could have “our asses handed to us by China.”
Several well-known conservatives who had been supporting Trump long before Musk loudly joined their cause this year and contributed more than $250 million to the Republican’s campaign were incensed by it.
Laura Loomer, a conspiracy-theorizing far-right MAGA who frequently accompanied Trump on his campaign jet, expressed her excitement about the impending split between President Trump and Big Tech.
“We must defend President Trump against the technocrats.”
She and others believed that Trump ought to further restrict immigration and promote American labor.
“MAGA civil war”
Musk retaliated against his detractors after organizing an internet campaign that helped destroy a bipartisan budget agreement last week, which had previously angered several Republicans.
He said that the visas were essential “for those who want America to win” and threatened to start a “MAGA civil war” over them in a post on X.
Musk added, “I will go to war on this issue,” after cursing at one detractor.
Trump advisor Steve Bannon responded to it by writing on the Gettr platform that the H1-B program brings in immigrants who are effectively “indentured servants” who labor for less than natives of the United States.
Bannon referred to Tesla CEO Elon Musk as a “toddler,” a scathing insult directed at Trump’s close pal. Some of Trump’s early supporters say they worry he is straying from his campaign pledges and succumbing to the influence of wealthy tech fundraisers like Musk.
Whether Trump’s comments will ease intraparty division, which has revealed how divisive altering the immigration system could be once he takes office in January, was not immediately apparent.
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