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Musk Appears to Soften, Pro-Foreign Worker, H-1B Visa Stance as Online Debate Continues
UPDATE: Tesla Laid Off THOUSANDS of U.S. Workers, Replaced Them With H-1B Migrants.
by Jack Philips, The Epoch Times, December 30, 2024
Tesla billionaire and X owner Elon Musk appeared to soften his stance on H-1B visas on Saturday night after saying he'd “go to war” for the visas, amid an ongoing online spat over immigration and the tech industry.
Tensions erupted between wealthy members of the tech world, including Musk and fellow entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and their call for what they describe as highly skilled workers in their industry by using H-1B visas, and Trump supporters who have long championed more stringent immigration policies to give priority to American workers.
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“Easily fixed by raising the minimum salary significantly and adding a yearly cost for maintaining the H-1B, making it materially more expensive to hire from overseas than domestically,” he wrote. “I’ve been very clear that the program is broken and needs major reform.”
Musk was responding to a remark from investor Robert Sterling, who said that “America needs to be a destination for the world’s most elite talent. But the H-1B program isn’t the way to do that.”
The H-1B visa program allows up to 65,000 highly skilled foreign workers annually, plus 20,000 foreigners who obtained an advanced degree from a U.S. institution, to fill specialized roles in the U.S. workforce.
Steven Bannon on his Warrom Podcast Monday said their will be no compromise on the H-1B Visa program. It must be scrapped because it is Anti-American Worker:
Read: Trump supports immigration visas backed by Musk
Musk and Ramaswamy, who were tapped to head the Trump-backed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), engaged in X infighting over whether immigrants who come to work at U.S. tech companies on H-1B visas or Americans would be better tech workers. Ramaswamy, in particular, drew ire for a lengthy post the day after Christmas that appeared to criticize a caricature of American culture.“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” Ramaswamy wrote. “A culture that venerates Cory from ‘Boy Meets World,’ or Zach & Slater over Screech in ‘Saved by the Bell,’ or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in ‘Family Matters,’ will not produce the best engineers.”
Musk appeared to echo his sentiments, writing in a post that the “number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low.” A number of pro-Trump accounts took umbrage with Musk’s and Ramaswamy’s comments.
