- President-elect Donald Trump told the New York Post on Saturday that he supports H-1B immigration visas amid a heated clash between his supporters and Elon Musk, who defended the use of the visa program.
President-elect Donald Trump weighed in on the debate raging among his supporters over the use of H-1B immigration visas for highly skilled workers.
“I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them,” he told the New York Post on Saturday. “I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program.”
That’s after some MAGA hard-liners who want to limit immigration have blasted the H-1B program, saying it doesn’t reflect “America first” policies.
Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa and is now cohead of the Department of Government Efficiency, joined the debate over the past week and expressed his support for H-1Bs, after railing against illegal immigration while stumping for Trump on the campaign trail. In fact, he was once on an H-1B visa himself and said the tech sector needs foreign workers.
“There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent,” he said in a post on his social media platform X on Wednesday. “It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley.”
But by Friday, Musk had turned more combative. In a reply to a post taunting him about H-1Bs, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla hit back sharply.
“The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla, and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B,” he wrote. “Take a big step back and F–K YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.”
For his part, candidate Trump in 2016 called the H-1B visa program “very bad” and “unfair” for U.S. Workers, even as his businesses have hired foreign workers, including waiters and cooks at his Mar-a-Lago club.
Trump Media & Technology Group, parent company of his Truth Social app, has used the H-1B program to employ workers.
During his first term as president, Trump signed a “Buy American and Hire American” executive order in 2017 to look into changes to the H-1B program that would ensure the visas didn’t harm American workers.
And while he made cracking down on immigration a centerpiece of his 2024 campaign, he also told the All-In podcast in June that he wants to give foreign students who graduate from U.S. Colleges a path to work here legally.
“I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country,” he said.