Musk and Ramaswamy defend foreign worker visas, sparking MAGA backlash

(CNN) — Social media posts by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy arguing in favor of expanding the visa program for highly skilled workers have set off a debate among supporters of President-elect Donald Trump over how the program should fit into the incoming administration’s aggressive immigration agenda.

Musk and Ramaswamy, whom Trump has tapped to lead his Department of Government Efficiency, defended companies who use workers on H-1B visas, arguing tech companies — including those owned by Musk — depend on foreign workers to operate. But their message rankled some of Trump’s most loyal defenders who expect his administration to crack down on immigration and promote American labor.

Trump restricted access to foreign worker visas during his first term and has targeted the H-1B program in past remarks. But during the 2024 campaign, Trump signaled openness to giving some foreign-born workers legal status if they graduated from a US university.

In a social media post on Wednesday, Musk said US tech companies need “double” the amount of engineers working in America today and compared the benefits of the program to a professional sports team recruiting the best talent from around the world.

“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,” Musk wrote on X.

“I am referring to bringing in via legal immigration the top ~0.1% of engineering talent as being essential for America to keep winning,” Musk wrote in another post on Thursday. “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.”

Ramaswamy, a first-generation US citizen whose parents immigrated from India, concurred with Musk while defending companies that look outside the US for labor, arguing tech companies hire engineers who were born outside the US or born to American immigrants because “American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence,” citing portrayals of smart students in TV sitcoms “Boy Meets World,” “Saved By The Bell” and “Family Matters” as evidence.

“Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG,” he wrote on Thursday. “A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”

The support for foreign workers sparked attacks from MAGA supporters who are concerned that an expansion of the H-1B program could undermine their wish to see immigration curbed under Trump’s administration. Loyal Trump backers like far-right activist Laura Loomer, conservative pundit Ann Coulter and former Rep. Matt Gaetz have criticized the two tech entrepreneurs over their stance.

“We welcomed the tech bros when they came running our way to avoid the 3rd grade teacher picking their kid’s gender – and the obvious Biden/Harris economic decline,” Gaetz wrote in a social media post on Thursday. “We did not ask them to engineer an immigration policy.”

Musk and Ramaswamy’s comments also drew condemnation from former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who responded to Ramaswamy’s post by calling on the incoming administration to prioritize American workers over foreign workers.

“There is nothing wrong with American workers or American culture. All you have to do is look at the border and see how many want what we have. We should be investing and prioritizing in Americans, not foreign workers,” Haley wrote on Thursday.

Musk and Ramaswamy’s position has found support among some Democrats as well.

“They get it partially right, absolutely,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source” Thursday night, saying that he applauded their recognition of the value of immigrant entrepreneurs while hoping that they also see the role that lower-skilled immigrants have in other sectors of the American economy, such as agriculture and construction.

“There are millions of Americans that work for companies that were founded by immigrants. Those jobs wouldn’t exist today if we didn’t let those immigrants in,” Polis said.

Trump has previously opposed such visas

The H-1B visa program allows 65,000 highly skilled workers to immigrate to the US each year to fill a specific job and grants another 20,000 visas to such workers who have received an advanced degree in the US. Economists have argued the program allows US companies to maintain competitiveness and grow their business, creating more jobs in the US. The program is often associated with the tech sector, where companies have a high demand for specialized workers. Musk came to the US as a foreign student and later worked on an H1-B visa.

Trump has previously opposed H-1B visas, sharply criticizing them during his first presidential campaign as a vehicle for “abuse.” In a 2016 statement, Trump attacked the H-1B program as a method for US companies to bring foreign workers into the country “for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay.”

In 2020, Trump restricted access to H-1B visas on several occasions, part of the administration’s effort to curb legal immigration while responding to the changing economic conditions brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.

But in his most recent presidential campaign, Trump has appeared more tolerant of highly skilled foreigners coming to work in the US. In a podcast interview in June, Trump said he wants to grant permanent residency to any foreign national who graduates college in the US.

“What I want to do, and what I will do is – you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country,” Trump said on the “All In” podcast.

Musk’s clash with members of Trump’s base over the visa issue marks another chapter in the tech billionaire’s growing influence in the president-elect’s orbit. After Musk led the opposition to a bipartisan government funding bill that was ultimately scrapped once Trump came out against it, Democrats began derisively labeling the tech mogul “President Musk” to suggest Musk his dictating policy goals to Trump. During remarks at a conservative activist gathering in Arizona on Sunday, Trump pushed back on the attacks from Democrats.

“No, he’s not taking the presidency. I like having smart people,” he said. “They’re on a new kick. ‘Russia, Russia, Russia,’ ‘Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine,’ all the different hoaxes. The new one is ‘President Trump has ceded the presidency to Elon Musk.’ No, no, that’s not happening.”