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

A multi-day firestorm erupted over comments made by two incoming advisers to President-elect Donald Trump about H-1B temporary worker visas, an exemption for highly skilled workers that some in the MAGA world say are taking jobs in America.

The fight began on X before Christmas after Trump appointed venture capitalist Sriram Krishnan to a top AI policy post, sparking a racial backlash that surfaced at Krishnan. comments that advocate for green cards for skilled workers.

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

Trump adviser Elon Musk, with whom Ramaswamy is co-leading Trump’s future Department of Government Efficiency, posted on X on Thursday in response to a tweet about the lack of skilled workers in Silicon Valley that “the number of people who are super talented AND super motivated engineers in the US is way too low.” Musk, who was born in South Africa and is a naturalized American citizen, urged people to “think of it like a pro sports team: If you want your TEAM to win the championship, you have to recruit top talent wherever would find out. it allows the whole TEAM to win.”

The posts of the two sparked backlash among MAGA’s ardent supporters who want a tough approach to all forms of immigration and revealed a rift in the relationship with a right-wing faction of some of Trump’s closest allies and advisers in the tech sector.

The split between anti-immigration MAGA loyalists and pro-immigration billionaires and tech executives also marks one of the biggest post-election battles within Trump’s coalition and comes just days after Musk instigated a battle major. over the federal budget which almost led to a government shutdown.

“If we’re going to have a roll, let’s take it now,” Steve Bannon said on his “War Room” show Friday morning, calling many of the arguments in favor of H-1B a “total sham.”

Spokesmen for Trump’s transition did not immediately respond to a request for comment. During the campaign, Trump sent mixed signals on skilled worker immigration. He said an a tech industry podcast in June that non-US citizens should “automatically” receive green cards when they graduate from college, but his campaign said that only referred to the “most qualified graduates,” who are “the most vetted.”

conservative commentator Mike Cernovich was among those who responded to Ramaswamy’s post on Thursday, responding that “the Woodstock generation was able to build aerospace, the one before that went to the moon, America was doing great. The basis of your post is that we were all living in squalor until we were saved by the H-1B. Then why did they all want to come here?”

Some tried to negotiate a deal between the factions, with venture capitalists Shaun Maguire defends Krishnan and writes that “the tech community should also hear MAGA’s points,” namely that immigrants “should be skilled AND aligned with American values” and fully assimilate.

Cernovich later shared an article about Ramaswamy more than a year into the campaign promising to “dismantle” the H-1B system if he had been elected. Ramaswamy retweeted.

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

Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and close ally of Trumpsaid X demonetized it — cutting off its ability to collect subscription fees and other revenue from the site — and revoked its blue check mark, about two days after it began criticizing Musk over the visas for the technology industry.

“Looks like Elon Musk is going to silence me for supporting Trump’s original immigration policies.” she posted on Xcalling the actions “retaliation.” Loomer has 1.4 million followers on X, and earlier this week she was among the first prominent conservatives to criticize Trump’s appointment of Krishnan to an artificial intelligence post.

Other right-wing accounts, including @rawsalerts, which has 1.1 million followers, have also said they have lost their verified status Thursday. The news account did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Musk did not directly respond to Loomer or the others who claimed censorship, but earlier in the day, he posted on X about Loomer’s anti-immigration comment.

“Loomer seeks attention. Ignore,” he wrote.

Musk later posted what he called “a reminder” on X that the site’s algorithm automatically reduces a user’s access if they are frequently blocked or disabled by other trusted users.

“If far more credible verified subscriber accounts (not bots) deactivate/ban your account compared to those who like your posts, your reach will drop significantly,” Musk. POSTED.

Musk and X did not immediately respond to requests for comment from NBC News on Friday.

Loomer also did not immediately respond to a request for comment, including whether it plans to switch platforms.

Anti-immigration The backlash against Musk and Ramaswamy’s comments sparked a broader conversation about how to revive the lagging American industry. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat responded that the revival of at least one example of a “fallen” American industry “seems highly unlikely to emerge from a test-oriented, grindset, sleep-deprived, mall-hangout mentality.” Retweeting Ramaswamy earlier, Douthat suggested that Trump’s future adviser he had misidentified the cause and inaccurately assessed the priorities and strengths of American culture.

The dispute over high-skilled immigration in Trump’s world comes as the Biden administration, in its final days, issued a the new regulation to “modernize” the H-1B program, which will take effect on January 17, just three days before Trump takes office.

Trump has promised to sign deportation orders on his first day in office and, in the latest sign of the incoming administration’s focus on immigration, his ‘border czar’ Tom Homan said Thursday on NBC that “family detention, if we bring it back, seems to be on the table. We haven’t finished the plans yet.”