Elon Musk shifts stand on H-1B visas: System broken, needs major reform

In response to a post on X, the social media site he owns, Musk said on Sunday that he has “been very clear” that the programme is “broken and needs major reform”.

He was responding to a user who said the US needs to be a destination for the “world’s most elite talent”, but the H-1B programme “isn’t the way to do that”.

In his post, Musk said the system can be “easily fixed by raising the minimum salary significantly and adding a yearly cost for maintaining the H-1B, making it materially more expensive to hire from overseas than domestically”.

In a series of social media posts late Friday, Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, had vowed to “go to war” to defend the visa programme for foreign tech workers, and asked those opposing it to “take a big step back”.

Easily fixed by raising the minimum salary significantly and adding a yearly cost for maintaining the H1B, making it materially more expensive to hire from overseas than domestically.

I’ve been very clear that the program is broken and needs major reform.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 29, 2024

“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 H-1B. Take a big step back… I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend,” he had said.

The H-1B visa has become a flashpoint within Trump’s conservative base. While Trump has criticised the H-1B visas in the past, calling them “very bad” and “unfair” for US workers, he supported Musk on Saturday, calling himself a “believer in H-1B” and saying he has “always been in favour of the visas”.

Deeply disturbing to see the appointment of Sriram Krishnan @sriramk as Senior Policy Advisor for AI at the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

It’s alarming to see the number of career leftists who are now being appointed to serve in Trump’s admin when they share views… https://t.co/pf0WiViy32 pic.twitter.com/nR0TkZpNK7

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) December 23, 2024

“I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favour of the visas. That’s why we have them,” Trump said in a telephone interview with 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 programme,” he said.

During his first term as President, Trump unveiled a “Hire American” policy that directed changes to the programme to try to ensure the visas were awarded to the highest-paid or most-skilled applicants. Trump’s hardline immigration policies, focused mostly on immigrants who are in the country illegally, were a cornerstone of his presidential campaign and a priority issue for his supporters.

The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if…

— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) December 26, 2024

But in recent days, his coalition has split in a public debate, largely taking place online, about the tech industry’s hiring of foreign workers. Hard-right members of Trump’s movement have accused Musk and others in Trump’s new flank of tech-world supporters of pushing policies at odds with Trump’s “America First” vision.

Software engineers and others in the tech industry have used H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers and say they are a critical tool for hard-to-fill positions. But critics have said they undercut US citizens who could take those jobs. Some on the right have called for the programme to be eliminated.

Between October 2022 and September 2023, 72 per cent of the nearly 4 lakh visas issued under the H-1B programme went to Indian nationals. During the same period, top four Indian IT majors with a presence in the US — Infosys, TCS, HCL, and Wipro — obtained approval for around 20,000 employees to work on H-1B visas, as per the latest US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data.