An online debate over high-skilled immigration between Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy and MAGA evangelists reveals Donald Trump’s Republican Party is grappling with growing pains as it prepares to retake the White House.
Days after the powerful allies of Trump in Silicon Valley took to social media to argue for a greater number of high-skilled immigrants, with a side-swipe at American culture for emphasizing “mediocrity over excellence,” some members of the far-right said such policies would make America “look like India.”
Enter Republican leaders like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who is trying to bridge the party’s divide on a key electoral issue for Trump, even as the president-elect has yet to weigh in on the debate.
Everyone fighting over high-skilled immigration “is engaged in saving this country,” she wrote on X.
She continued, “Here is some tough reality for some of you: There are some big MAGA voices with large social media platforms throwing down their opinions yet they have never run a company that relies on thousands of skilled/highly trained workers with a constant need for reliable labor yet they claim authority over the subject matter.”
Her comments come as other Republican lawmakers have publicly denounced calls from tech entrepreneurs to increase foreign high-skilled immigration.
“The United States graduates over half a million STEM students per year. If there is an issue in the tech workforce, then we need to address it at the educational level, not import a problem away,” said Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) in an X post on Thursday.
A Trump transition spokesperson declined to comment but pointed POLITICO to an X post from incoming White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller wrote Thursday that cited a Trump speech from four years ago. “Above all, our children, from every community, must be taught that to be American is to inherit the spirit of the most adventurous and confident people ever to walk the face of the Earth,” Miller quoted Trump from the speech given July 3, 2020, at Mount Rushmore, which went on to cite many examples of American innovation.
It’s the latest chapter in a controversy that spread after far-right activist Laura Loomer criticized Trump for naming Sriram Krishnan, an Indian-American technology entrepreneur and investor who has advocated for lifting country caps on green cards, as his senior policy adviser on artificial intelligence, calling him a “career leftist.”
Loomer wrote, “We are substituting a third world migrant invasion for a third world tech invasion,” and later followed up with, “‘High skilled immigrant’ doesn’t have running water or toilet paper.”
Musk hit back, writing on Christmas Day that a “permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent,” is the “fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley” that could be addressed through an increase of skilled-labor visas. Ramaswamy followed on Thursday with a post that blamed 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'” — a favoring of popularity over smarts that “will not produce the best engineers.”
That earned a swift rejoinder from Nick Fuentes, a conservative firebrand who wrote, “I don’t know who needs to hear this but the latest push for H-1B visas actually has nothing to do with jocks and nerds or high school prom — it’s about whether we want 500 million indians to move here.”
H1-B visas, which allow U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in tech and other specialized jobs on a short-term basis, have come under scrutiny as hardline immigration advocates claim they lower wages for U.S. workers.
In the latest twist, Loomer said Musk removed her X verification on Friday, first reported by the anti-Trump outlet Meidas Touch. “So much for free speech. Quite totalitarian if you ask me,” Loomer wrote in a post. A spokesperson for X did not respond to questions.
Some of the newest arrivals to the Republican party, MAGA converts in Silicon Valley are pushing an immigration agenda that boosts their industry in a party that has built its brand on anti-immigrant sentiment.
Some of those recent converts are hoping to recast the heated disagreement as a healthy and open conversation — and a better alternative to how Democrats handle the issue.
“MAGA debate is about people sharing their ideas and getting others to subscribe to them,” said Cameron Winklevoss, a tech executive who backed Trump, in a post on X. “Left debate is about people sharing party talking points (usually wrong) and getting others who don’t subscribe to them cancelled.”
Meanwhile, Democrats are praising immigration as one of America’s powerful drivers of prosperity.
In a Washington Post interview, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who represents Silicon Valley, supported Krishnan and entrepreneurs in tech who have chosen to become American citizens.
He posted, “It is GREAT that talent around the world wants to come here, not to China, & that Sriram can rise to the highest levels. It’s called American exceptionalism.”
And it’s causing some other Democrats to cast the division between Republicans and the Trump movement at large as racist.
“The far-right backlash against Indian immigrants confirms what we in the Democratic Party have long known,” Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) said in a post on X. “That the far right is implacably hostile to all forms of non-European immigration regardless of legal status. It’s not about status. It’s about race. The far right prefers ‘purity’ over prosperity.”