WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. | An online spat between factions of Donald Trump’s supporters over immigration and the tech industry has thrown internal divisions in his political movement into public display, previewing the fissures and contradictory views his coalition could bring to the White House.
The rift laid bare the tensions between the newest flank of Trump’s movement — wealthy members of the tech world including billionaire Elon Musk and fellow entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and their call for more highly skilled workers in their industry — and people in Trump’s Make America Great Again base who championed his hardline immigration policies.
The debate touched off this week when Laura Loomer, a right-wing provocateur with a history of racist and conspiratorial comments, criticized Trump’s selection of Sriram Krishnan as an adviser on artificial intelligence policy in his coming administration. Krishnan favors the ability to bring more skilled immigrants into the U.S.
Loomer declared the stance to be “not America First policy” and said the tech executives who have aligned themselves with Trump were doing so to enrich themselves.
Much of the debate played out on the social media network X, which Musk owns.
Loomer’s comments sparked a back-and-forth with venture capitalist and former PayPal executive David Sacks, whom Trump has tapped to be the “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar.” Musk and Ramaswamy, whom Trump has tasked with finding ways to cut the federal government, weighed in, defending the tech industry’s need to bring in foreign workers.
It bloomed into a larger debate with more figures from the hard-right weighing in about the need to hire U.S. workers, whether values in American culture can produce the best engineers, free speech on the internet, the newfound influence tech figures have in Trump’s world and what his political movement stands for.
Trump has not yet weighed in on the rift, and his presidential transition team did not respond to a message seeking comment.
Musk, the world’s richest man who has grown remarkably close to the president-elect, was a central figure in the debate, not only for his stature in Trump’s movement but his stance on the tech industry’s hiring of foreign workers.
Technology companies say H-1B visas for skilled workers, used by software engineers and others in the tech industry, are critical for hard-to-fill positions. But critics have said they undercut U.S. citizens who could take those jobs. Some on the right have called for the program to be eliminated, not expanded.
Born in South Africa, Musk was once on an a H-1B visa himself and defended the industry’s need to bring in foreign workers.
“There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent,” he said in a post. “It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley.”
Trump’s own positions over the years have reflected the divide in his movement.
His tough immigration policies, including his pledge for a mass deportation, were central to his winning presidential campaign. He has focused on immigrants who come into the U.S. illegally but he has also sought curbs on legal immigration, including family-based visas.
As a presidential candidate in 2016, Trump called the H-1B visa program “very bad” and “unfair” for U.S. workers. After he became president, Trump in 2017 issued a “Buy American and Hire American” executive order, which directed Cabinet members to suggest changes to ensure H-1B visas were awarded to the highest-paid or most-skilled applicants to protect American workers.
Trump’s businesses, however, have hired foreign workers, including waiters and cooks at his Mar-a-Lago club, and his social media company behind his Truth Social app has used the the H-1B program for highly skilled workers.
During his 2024 campaign for president, as he made immigration his signature issue, Trump said immigrants in the country illegally are “poisoning the blood of our country” and promised to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history.
But in a sharp departure from his usual alarmist message around immigration generally, Trump told a podcast this year that he wants to give automatic green cards to foreign students who graduate from U.S. colleges.
“I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country,” he told the “All-In” podcast with people from the venture capital and technology world.
Those comments came on the cusp of Trump’s budding alliance with tech industry figures, but he did not make the idea a regular part of his campaign message or detail any plans to pursue such changes.
Ah, another point where jingoistic ignorance collides with reality. The US is not the only country with well-educated, experienced people in the labor pool. And some of the people we will always need is well-educated, experienced people from other countries.
And treating foreign workers like filthy, grubby little peasants does NOT help recruit them. MAGA is going to need many more bullets, and they still won’t solve the problem. What happens when you put a felonious ignoramus in charge.
The issue here is that the American education system isn’t graduating smart enough students who can engineer what the tech industry needs. Nope, we’re too busy ensuring we have bibles in school libraries and the 10 commandments on the walls of every classroom.
Understand that workers with H1B Visas are not immigrants. They’re employees who came to America to learn and work, LEGALLY! These workers actually bring positive change and influence to keep America great. These aren’t illegals coming across the southern border who drain our financial resources
Unfortunately, MAGA Trumpian idiots like Laura Loomer don’t understand how the world works and what it will take to keep America great in the face of major international economic competition.
This is going to be fun to watch!