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Pro-Trump tech leaders and MAGA loyalists are feuding over how to overhaul the US immigration system.
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A debate over visas for high-skilled workers intensified between the two groups in recent days.
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Trump recently appointed an Indian-born tech leader as a senior policy advisor.
President-elect Donald Trump’s backers in Silicon Valley are at odds with his MAGA loyalists over a key issue: immigration.
In recent days, Elon Musk and others in the tech sector have voiced support for H-1B visas, which allow US companies to hire highly skilled workers from overseas. The move has riled up Trump backers who favor stricter immigration rules.
Musk’s latest response to the backlash came late Friday in an expletive-laden X post. He said an H-1B visa allowed him and others to build “SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong.”
“I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend,” he posted.
The debate began after Trump offered Sriram Krishnan, a Chennai-born, Indian American investor, a role as a senior policy advisor for artificial intelligence.
Krishnan, who recently lived in London while leading an expansion of the venture capital firm A16z, moved to the United States after graduating from college in India and worked at several tech firms, including Microsoft, Twitter, and Meta.
Criticism has largely come from anonymous social media accounts — one X post asked if anyone had voted “for this Indian to run America,” prompting a defense from Trump’s AI and crypto czar, David Sacks.
Krishnan’s appointment has prompted a wider debate on the merits of H-1B visas.
Some tech leaders who have been deeply critical of illegal immigration have stepped up to defend immigration policies that allow high-skilled foreign workers to stay in the United States legally.
Musk said on Thursday his priority was bringing in top engineering talent legally — saying it is “essential for America to keep winning.”
Thinking of America as a pro sports team that has been winning for a long time and wants to keep winning is the right mental construct,” he wrote on X.
