Elon Musk Appears To Soften Pro-Foreign Worker, H-1B Visa Stance Amid Online Spat

Epoch Times ^ | 12/29/2024 | Jack Phillips

[SeekAndFind]

Tesla billionaire and X owner Elon Musk appeared to soften his stance on H-1B visas on Saturday night after saying he'd “go to war” for the visas, amid an ongoing online spat over immigration and the tech industry.

Tensions erupted between wealthy members of the tech world, including Musk and fellow entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and their call for what they describe as highly skilled workers in their industry by using H-1B visas, and Trump supporters who have long championed more stringent immigration policies to give priority to American workers.

On Saturday night, Musk responded to a mega-thread on social media platform X that criticized how H-1B visas are being used.

“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,” he wrote.

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

Musk was responding to a remark from investor Robert Sterling, who said that:

“America needs to be a destination for the world’s most elite talent. But the H-1B program isn’t the way to do that.”

The H-1B visa program allows up to 65,000 highly skilled foreign workers annually, plus 20,000 foreigners who obtained an advanced degree from a U.S. institution, to fill specialized roles in the U.S. workforce.

Separately, Musk has been accused of censorship from conservatives after multiple prominent accounts that criticized his views on immigration and H-1B visas lost access to premium features.

Laura Loomer, a conservative activist and independent journalist who has long backed President-elect Donald Trump, wrote on X in multiple posts over the weekend that the social platform demonetized her account of more than 1.4 million followers. Her account appears to now lack a verified blue check mark.

Loomer said that it was because she posted comments that were critical of Musk and his allies’ views on immigration as well as H-1B visas.

“Why are X users who pay for @premium having their posts listed as ‘probable spam’ on my posts @elonmusk?” she wrote late on Saturday. “This is censorship. I understand you don’t like me, but this is nothing but retaliatory censorship?”

Last Tuesday, Loomer criticized tech billionaires for descending “upon Palm Beach” as Trump works on his transition team at Mar-a-Lago. Two days later, Musk responded by saying: “Loomer is trolling for attention. Ignore.”

Later that week, she said that her account lost access to premium features.

Others who also said their accounts lost premium access include InfoWars host and Jan. 6 defendant Owen Shroyer, New York Young Republican Club president Gavin Wax, and the ConservativePAC, which all have hundreds of thousands of followers apiece.

“My verification badge is now under review. Weird! Didn’t change anything,” wrote Wax, who also spoke out against H-1B visas. As of Sunday, however, Wax appears to have had his verification badge restored.

“All of our influencers have now lost verification status, as well as our own page,” the Trump-supporting ConservativePAC wrote. “Our brand did nothing. We spoke out against HB1 visas and it appears that @elonmusk intentionally shut us down? Is this the new status quo from America’s ‘most free’ social media platform?”

So far, Musk has not publicly responded to the recent accusations of censorship on X. The Epoch Times contacted the platform for comment but received no response as of Sunday.

Musk and Ramaswamy, who were tapped to head the Trump-backed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), engaged in X infighting over whether immigrants who come to work at U.S. tech companies on H-1B visas or Americans would be better tech workers. Ramaswamy, in particular, drew ire for a lengthy post the day after Christmas that appeared to criticize a caricature of American culture.

“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” Ramaswamy wrote. “A culture that venerates Cory from ‘Boy Meets World,’ or Zach & Slater over Screech in ‘Saved by the Bell,’ or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in ‘Family Matters,’ will not produce the best engineers.”

Musk appeared to echo his sentiments, writing in a post that the “number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low.” A number of pro-Trump accounts took umbrage with Musk’s and Ramaswamy’s comments.

On Saturday, meanwhile, Trump weighed in on the controversy and appeared to back Musk and Ramaswamy, telling the New York Post that he supports the H-1B program.

“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,” said Trump, although the president-elect had restricted access to such visas during his first term in office.

[SoConPubbie]

Pretty sure this was misrepresented by the media, GOP-E, and anyone who is even mildly NeverTrump.

This group of bad actors will do anything they can to harm President Trump and his Agenda!

[packagingguy]

Most of those jobs can be done remotely.

My next door neighbor works with people around the world on information systems.

He works for Cummings and coordinates with teams in Africa, Asia and South America.

So most of these people can just stay where they are and do their jobs there.

[SeekAndFind]

Here's five years of H-1B data from the US DOL website (4M+ records). Someone actually spent time crunching the data

All charts in this thread are for applications that were “certified” (in other words, approved for entry into the H-1B lottery). I filtered out applications the gov rejected. All numbers here are therefore for visas employers actually and realistically attempted to obtain

To start with, this program is MASSIVELY popular with employers. The program has a statutory limit of 85,000 visas per year, but employers routinely receive approval for more than 800k applications per year (868k, or 10x the limit, in 2024).

Contrary to what we would expect, the average salary for an H-1B is relatively low — slightly under $120k this year. Given that much of the H-1B debate pertains to tech workers, we would assume the average would be higher. But this is the beauty of data,



You can see that salaries are disproportionately weighted toward the lower bands:

17% are < $75k (blue)
21% are $75-100k (orange)
22% are $100-125k (pink)
15% are $125-150k (teal)

In other words, ~75% are jobs paying < $150k. Only 25% are $150k+, and, of those, only 2.5% are $250k+ (purple).

Almost all the prominent job categories are tech-related. The two top categories, for software developer roles, are 1.1M over five years by themselves.

Basically every role with 30k+ H-1B applications is for a STEM field, with the exception of accountants and auditors (49k). Most of them IT-related, at that.

There’s a little more variety in roles with smaller numbers, but the overall tilt towards STEM remains throughout.

[stanne]

Em:
Elon Musk says Americans
‘are trying to avoid going to work at all,’ unlike Chinese workers who ‘will be burning the 3 a.m. oil’

From X:
“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.
Take a big step back and FUCK YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.“

[I got the rope]

Not it wasn’t. He said what he said. Now he and others will he held accountable. Everyone downloaded all the data. It’s a complete and total scam. There is no way to defend it. H1B visa program is going to die.

[I got the rope]

I’m in Texas. I am going to war on this issue now. I’m not going to have some foreigner flood my country with ignorant 3rd worlders.

[DSH]

Not it wasn’t. He said what he said. Now he and others will he held accountable. Everyone downloaded all the data. It’s a complete and total scam. There is no way to defend it. H1B visa program is going to die.

Yes, it should. And hopefully it will. We'll just have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, I suspect that little Eloi got a stern talking to over the weekend -- by Stephen Miller, most likely -- and being the gutless charlatan that he is, realized that he needed to make the proper noises for a time.

There's going to come a time when Trump & Co. are going to have to come to terms with the fact that Eloi doesn't care about Trump, or MAGA, or America First. Eloi cares about Eloi, and that's all he cares about.

[Theoria]

[yesthatjallen]

IQ compared by countries

[SoConPubbie]

Not it wasn’t. He said what he said. Now he and others will he held accountable. Everyone downloaded all the data. It’s a complete and total scam. There is no way to defend it. H1B visa program is going to die.

Oh yes it was.

Ignore it if you will and stick your head in the sand, but the amplification of the issue was done by bad actors to try and harm President Trump in the eyes of MAGA supporters and slow down his MAGA Agenda.

The solution to the H1B problem has always been to charge a huge fee for each resource desired by company desiring the resource so that any H1B would cost the company much more than an American resource of the same caliber.

This way the H1B would be truly used for what it was meant to be used for, resources that could not be found in the US.

This eliminates the Fraud and the mis-use by Big Tech of the H1B to lower American wages or using the foreign cheaper labor to replace more expensive American labor.

This was already the policy of President Trump in his first administration and by Musk agreeing with this policy in his recent statements, everyone of importance on this issue in his current cabinet is aligned.

I would add, that if you are still complaining about where President Trump, or Musk, is on this issue today, you truly are a NeverTrumper!

[jroehl]

This is all about disempowering whitey to keep tech/media monopolies.

[stars & stripes forever]

ELON (and VIVEK): Familiarize yourselves with America’s History to understand our beginnings, culture, and worldview before you lecture U.S.

[nwrep]

[central_va]

Elon Musk can go fornicate himself and when done move to the rocket haven country of North Korea.

[central_va]

The H-1B visa is the killer of the American dream for many. I am one who was affected. Being the victim made me jaded and cynical. How could any countty do this to their own citizens? It is sick.....

[central_va]

Why don't you take your coolie loving BS somewhere else. Elon wants you pecksniffian fools on X, so go there.

[T.B. Yoits]

Elon Musk says Americans ‘are trying to avoid going to work at all,’ unlike Chinese workers who ‘will be burning the 3 a.m. oil’

Young Chinese are embracing Tang ping or "lying flat"; a personal rejection of the rat race with ever diminishing returns. Tang ping means choosing to "lie down flat and get over the beatings" via a low-desire, more indifferent attitude towards life. Young Chinese also embrace Bai lan or "Let it Rot", an attitude of letting a bad situation stay so without trying to improve it.

They know what slavery in a korporation is, like at Apple / Foxconn in Shenzhen where management installed nets to relocate employees' suicides to somewhere else other than the buildings they were working in.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1357833/Apple-responds-suicides-Chinese-Foxconn-factory-hanging-nets.html

[central_va]

Elon and Vivek dream is Sweatshop America™.

[I got the rope]

You are the one ignoring the data. 75% of the users on Twitter disagree with elon, trump, and vivek, on this issue. Thus is a real issue that if ignored will lose Republicans the midterms.

Either everyone joins the stated platform and stop immigration or get this under control or the base stays home.