Supporters of President-elect Donald Trump are clashing online over a visa program aimed at bringing skilled workers to the US – signaling a potential rift in the incoming administration.
Vivek Ramaswamy, who has been tapped by Trump to cut government spending, said that American culture is the reason why American firms decide to hire foreign skilled workers, which is often done on H-1B temporary worker visas.
“Our American culture has valued gentleness over virtue,” Ramaswamy wrote in a lengthy X post that said foreign workers are boosting America's economy.
The post drew backlash from Trump's staunch anti-immigration supporters, prompting Ramaswamy to clarify his position.
Aiming at American culture, Ramaswamy originally wrote: “A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champion, or the joker over the valedictorian. [the top student in a class]it won't produce the best engineers.”
After being trolled online by anti-immigration Trump supporters, Ramaswamy returned to X to write that he believes “the H-1B system is terribly broken and needs to be changed”.
The disagreement led to an online row over the holidays, as mainstream Republicans and right-wingers joined in criticizing Ramaswamy and other wealthy individuals in Trump's inner circle.
“If we're going to throw a fit, let's take it now,” prominent Trump supporter Steve Bannon said on his War Room podcast on Friday. He went on to say that Republican claims to support the H-1B program are “a complete sham”.
But Ramaswamy's vision for skilled worker visas has been backed by Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who has been appointed to co-chair the proposed “Department of Public Works.”
Musk protect the H-1B visa program as attracting the “top ~0.1%” of engineering talent”.
“Thinking of America as a sports team that has been winning for a long time and wants to keep winning makes sense,” he tweeted.
Critics online posted screenshots of job postings at Musk's companies filled by people with H1-B visas, showing salaries of $200,000 and less, and said that this hiring does not capture the talent pool but is a way to capture the wages of US-born workers.
Musk then responded with “despicable fools”, saying he was referring to “those in the Republican Party who are hateful, unrepentant racists”.
“They will be the downfall of the Republican Party if they are not removed,” he wrote.
He later insulted one of his critics and said he would “go to war” to protect the visa system.
Nikki Haley, Trump's former ambassador to the United Nations and former Republican presidential candidate, became a prominent voice against Ramaswamy and Musk.
“There is nothing wrong with American workers or American culture,” he wrote in response to X. “All you have to do is look across the border and see how many want what we have. We have to invest in and prioritize American people, not foreign workers.”
Haley, who like Ramaswamy was born to Indian immigrants, was joined in opposing the visa program by right-wing accounts online.
Laura Loomer, an anti-Islamic activist who often spreads conspiracy theories but is also known for her staunch support for Trump, led the online charge with a post that has been viewed millions of times.
Earlier in the week, Loomer criticized Trump's selection of Sriram Krishnan, an Indian-born businessman, as the White House's top adviser on artificial intelligence. Loomer wrote that Krishnan was a “leftist” and “directly opposed to Trump's America First agenda”.
Enjoyed by right-wing X accounts, he also called Indian immigrants “invaders” and directed racist tropes at Krishnan.
Loomer then accused Musk, who owns X, of “investigating” him for allegedly limiting responses to his posts on the network and kicking him out of the paid program.
Echoing Trump's criticism of the X boss's influence, he wrote: “'President Musk' is starting to look real… Free speech is an illusion.”
On Friday and Saturday, dozens of other far-right accounts also complained that their messages had been accessed by X.
The number of H-1B visas issued is up to 65,000 per year and another 20,000 for people with advanced degrees from US institutions.
The latest research by Boundlessimmigration company, shows that about 73% of H-1B visas are issued to Indian nationals, while 12% are issued to Chinese nationals.
Trump has promised mass deportations of undocumented immigrants will begin immediately after taking office. He has been critical of the H-1B program and strengthened the validity of that visa during his first term.
His vice president, JD Vance, also campaigned against the plan, but he has close ties to the tech world. In his previous career as a venture capitalist, Vance financed startups that hired workers on H-1B visas.
In recent days, the president-elect has again denied that he is under the influence of Musk and other billionaires who supported his campaign.
On Sunday, Trump told a conference of conservatives in Arizona that he was not under Musk's thumb.
“You know, they're on a new path,” he told the crowd at AmericaFest, organized by Turning Point USA. “All lies are different. The new one is that President Trump has given Elon Musk the position of president.”
“No, no, that's not possible,” “Oh! “He won't be president.”
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