Trump advisers Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy expose rift with MAGA loyalists over immigrant tech workers

 

Elon Musk carries his son on his shoulders at the U.S. Capitol following a meeting with businessman Vivek Ramaswamy Dec. 5. The two Trump advisers have come under fire from MAGA loyalists over their positions on H-1B visas.

A multiday firestorm has erupted over comments made by two incoming advisers to President-elect Donald Trump about H-1B temporary worker visas, a carve-out for high-skilled workers who some in the MAGA world say are taking American jobs.  

The fight began brewing on X ahead of Christmas after Trump named venture capitalist Sriram Krishnan to a top artificial intelligence policy post, triggering a racially charged backlash that surfaced Krishnan’s comments advocating for green cards for skilled workers.

The backlash escalated Thursday, when Vivek Ramaswamy, in a post on X, criticized an American culture that he said “venerated mediocrity over excellence,” attributing this as one reason for the influx of foreign tech workers. Ramaswamy, who is Indian American, went on to say he hopes Trump’s presidency can start an American culture that prioritizes “hard work over laziness.” Tech executives have called for greater access to the widely used immigration visa, arguing that it is necessary to fill high-skilled tech and other specialized jobs.

Trump adviser Elon Musk, with whom Ramaswamy is a co-leader of Trump’s incoming Department of Government Efficiency, had posted Thursday on X in response to a tweet about a shortage of skilled workers in Silicon Valley that “the number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low.” Musk, who was born in South Africa and is a naturalized American citizen, urged people to think "of this like a pro sports team: if you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be. That enables the whole TEAM to win.”

The posts by the two generated backlash among ardent MAGA supporters who want a hard-line approach to all forms of immigration, and exposed a chasm in the relationship with a right-wing faction of some of Trump's closest allies and advisers from the tech sector.

The rift between anti-immigration MAGA loyalists and pro-immigration tech billionaires and executives also marks one of the biggest post-election fights within Trump’s coalition, and came just days after Musk instigated a major battle over the federal budget that nearly led to a government shutdown.

“If we are going to have a throwdown, let’s have it now,” Steve Bannon said on his "War Room" show Friday morning, calling many of the arguments in favor of H-1Bs a "total scam."

Trump transition spokespeople did not immediately respond to a request for comment. During the campaign, Trump sent mixed signals on skilled worker immigration. He said on a tech industry podcast in June that noncitizens in the U.S. should "automatically" get green cards when they graduate from college, but his campaign said he was referring only to "the most skilled graduates" who are "the most thoroughly vetted."

Conservative commentator Mike Cernovich was among those who responded to Ramaswamy’s post on Thursday, replying that “the Woodstock generation managed to build out aerospace, the one before went to the moon, America was doing great. Underlying your post is that we were all living in squalor until being rescued by H-1B’s. Then why did everyone want to come here?” 

Some attempted to broker agreement between the factions, with venture capitalist Shaun Maguire defending Krishnan and writing that "the tech community should also hear MAGA’s points," namely that immigrants "should be skilled AND aligned w/ American values" and fully assimilate.

Later, Cernovich shared an article on Ramaswamy more than a year ago on the campaign trail promising to “gut” the H-1B system if he were elected. Ramaswamy retweeted it.

Also on Thursday, some MAGA loyalists said Musk had begun to retaliate against them by censoring them on X, which he owns, because of their opposition to skilled immigration.

Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and close Trump ally, said that X had demonetized her — cutting off her ability to collect subscription fees and other revenue on the site — and had revoked her blue verification checkmark, about two days after she began criticizing Musk over tech industry visas.