Millions of Donald Trump’s followers have just discovered that they don’t have as much in common with the richest man on the planet as they thought. They had believed what they were told about immigrants stealing your jobs and now the Silicon Valley tycoons tell them no, that this only applies to poor people’s jobs. “I voted for Donald Trump, not for the technology millionaires, and I voted for less immigration,” says ultra activist Laura Loomer. “Fuck you”, responds Elon Musk.
Three weeks after Trump’s return to power, the civil war has broken out in Trumpism over H1B visas, which allow foreigners to work legally in the US. “with highly specialized knowledge” or to “catwalk models of distinguished merit and skill.” Only 85,000 are granted per year and large technology companies such as Amazon, Google or Tesla They use them to hire thousands of engineers brilliant from the rest of the world. In total, 7 out of 10 workers with H1B visas are Indians.
Like everyone in his industry, Musk wants to remove the limits on H1Bs and hire foreigners more easily, but people who have been with Trump since day one, like Laura Loomer, don’t care if those Indians have a degree in engineering or a doctorate: his racism knows no nuances. In recent days he has said that they have “highly specialized knowledge of stealing American jobs”that their academic titles “They are fraudulent and their attitude is even worse” and that they are “third world invaders” who have no “running water or toilet paper”. It’s another way of saying he probably doesn’t know any of them.
On Musk’s side, of course, no one sheds a tear for the more than 10 million immigrants without papers that Trump wants to deport, even though they represent more than 12% of workers in sectors such as agriculture or construction. It may be that they consider that the knowledge of those who feed them or build their houses is not “specialized” enough and that Americans can do that. Another thing is its own industry, where according to Musk “You have to think like in professional sports: if you want your team to win, you have to hire talent wherever it is.”
Musk is finding that this argument does not seduce the same people who have been giving him the pill for months and who are now asking him to hire American engineers or worry about training them. “If you need a school, you have already lost.”responds the owner of X, emphasizing the “dramatic” lack of “extremely talented and motivated” engineers. And that is perhaps what angers his suddenly ex-friends the most, the little talk about motivation.
Vivek Ramaswamy, the businessman son of Indians who shares with Musk the presidency of that strange efficiency commission of the Trump government, has put his finger deeper into the wound. explaining that large technology companies “habitually hire foreign engineers more than native ones” because American culture “reveres mediocrity more than excellence” because of television series where the hero is the handsome one and people make fun of the nerd. “More math tutoring and fewer sleepovers.”
Beyond morality, there is no doubt that Musk and his allies know the reality of a technology industry that cannot exist if it is 100% American and not only in its base workers. 65% of US companies leading in artificial intelligence has at least one foreign founder and the Silicon Valley elite is full of tycoons who were born far from the United States. The CEO of Microsoft is Indian, one of the founders of Google was born in Moscow and the CEO of NVIDIA is Taiwanese. All that apart from Elon Musk himself, of course, who was born in South Africa and He was able to pursue a career in the US thanks to an H1B visa.
A fight to the death for Trump’s attention
In the background, above H1B visas and the sinister game of making categories of migrants expendable, there is also a lifelong power struggle. Elon Musk only decided to support Trump a few months ago after recognizing that there was voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. He is a newcomer to Trumpism, but he has risen to the top thanks to his contributions to the cause in money and influence.
On the other hand, people like Laura Loomer, Steve Bannon or the rest of influencers Ultras who are facing Musk today have been in Trump’s trenches forever, although that does not mean they are going to win. Loomer says that “tech millionaires can’t just walk into Mar-a-Lago, open their huge checkbooks and rewrite our immigration policies.” But maybe they can.
The president-elect seems inclined to agree with Musk in this battle. “I have always been in favor of visas”he said, forgetting that In the past he stated exactly the opposite. Will he really do it? And more interesting, will there then be a revolt among his followers or is it a matter of a few activists who see their position in danger? His supporters have demonstrated an unparalleled ability to continue supporting Trump against all odds, but who knows if a few Indian engineers were the secret weapon that Democrats have been looking for for years. There isn’t much left to know: he returns to the White House on January 20.
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