1mo ago

Trump sides with Musk on support for H-1B visas for foreign tech workers

www.theguardian.com Trump sides with Musk on support for H-1B visas for foreign tech workers

Remarks follow social media posts from Tesla and SpaceX CEO, who vowed to go to ‘war’ to defend program

Summary

Donald Trump publicly supported Elon Musk’s defense of the H-1B visa program for skilled foreign tech workers, despite opposition from some of his far-right supporters.

The debate was reignited after Trump appointed Indian-American AI expert Sriram Krishnan as an adviser, sparking criticism from immigration hard-liners.

Musk, a former H-1B holder, argued the program is essential for U.S. tech, while critics like Steve Bannon claim it undercuts American wages.

This stance marks a shift from Trump’s earlier policies limiting H-1B visas, highlighting tensions within his base over immigration policy.

39 comments

Elon bought Trump, so this isn't surprising.
Also, it's clear that Trump just regurgitates whatever slop Elon says because he thinks it will make him look smart.
- Billionaire got so many billions he can buy himself a little puppet billionaire*.
  *Alleged billionaire
  
  This should be the narrative on Xitter.

All of this so Elon can say he was legal. Lmao. Fucking children, man.
- He was legal later, when he finally got that h1b. At the beginning he was on a student visa that he very illegally overstayed, then paid to have things fixed.

H1B employees are so valuable to these people because they can be bullied into working for less, working longer and threatened with deportation if they don't comply and keep their mouth shut. Exploitation is the only reason for this.
- Luxury migrants. Get a planeful today.
- all immigration is a net benefit, I've been waiting to see how, like every other right wing govt in the history of history, this one pretends they hate immigrants while not doing anything about it in a way that looks like they are doing something about it.
  And that's it, that's the gig.

Alright guys, where are the Q-anon like conspiracy theories on how DT is locked in some corpo-state dungeon under a drug store in Toomer’s corner while Elon, Bezos, et al. have replaced him with an AI-like puppet?
Cuz y’all need to get in on this quick while the gettin’s good.
- If I was a creative writer, and a bit more evil, I'd start posting that on pol.
- Toomers is weirdly a possibility because Tim Cook is an Auburn grad

I'm torn on this, I hate Bannon, but in the extreme right wing neo national socialism thinking he is consistent. And while he has power, it's contained to some degree.
But I think I hate Musk even more, despite the fact he acknowledges that america can't thrive alone. His basically unlimited power is a very big problem for the whole world.
- Elon doesn't give a shit about America. Elon only gives a shit about his money bin, and he wants to make sure he has more coins to swim in.

Fuck these fascists. This is not just about Musk's greed. All these sycophants around Trump obviously want so much more than money. They want unlimited unregulated power, immortality, a white patriarchal supremacist ethnostate. They're setting up an Authoritarian Kyriarchical Totalitarian regime. An overt American Empire.
The terrifying part about all of this is that this infighting, while perhaps entertaining to witness, is ultimately a display of monarchy forming in America, a monarchy that a significant portion of Americans apparently are willing to usher in for the sake of relieving economic hardship.
In my view, this is because the power structures left in place by unfettered, unregulated capitalism have so neutered the power of the populace and stripped them of access to knowledge (and nearly everything else) that they are left with only a facade of choice every four years. They are left voting with their wallets or with their hate, because they are generally aware their vote means little more than delaying or accelerating the decline into fascism.
We all know this is only the beginning. As the pawns and knights and rooks jockey for position around Trump, eventually a concentrated mass of the most sycophantic and power hungry will be the ones left surrounding him. And Trump gives less than two shits about competency and all the shits about subservience.
After this jockeying for power has settled, it is likely the explicit and overt Empire building can begin, and the end of the world might very well transpire thereafter.
EDIT: wording/grammer
- This is a new age. Idk what the future holds, but the days of the republic are done. RIP America. Twas a nice idea

"President Elon rings a bell, sidekick Trump drools. And now with the weather, is a quadriplegic strapped to a donkey."
- Poor donkey. He doesn't belong in a TV studio, and is probably terrified of the entire experience.

Well, there it is. The one fucking policy decision Trump made his first term that I agreed with and could point to as "see? I don't hate everything Trump does just because he's Trump," was his reduction of H1B visas.
Now I guess I can officially say I hate every single Trump policy. There is no silver lining. He makes the wrong decision every time.
- What's wrong with H1B visas? Or, well, I know what's wrong with H1B visas but how is reducing them the right solutions to those problems?
  
  The problem with tech workers isn't there aren't enough Americans willing or able to do the work, it's that we bring in essentially indentured servants instead of just educating our own people and paying them. H1B visas are supposed to be the stopgap, not the solution.
  But they want stupid American consumers and voters and cheap and capable foreign worker drones. It's disgusting the way the wealthy feed off of America like a pig trough.

Well yeah, that's what being a little bitch is all about!

Great, get rid of the immigrants who work at backbreaking, starvation wage jobs to keep food prices low and import H1B immigrants who will take all those good paying jobs.

... for now. If there's one thing constant about Trump it's that he doesn't have any ideals. If there is pushback from his base he'll fold.

Trump and musk are just giving all their fans a middle finger. And I doubt any of those simps will realize it.

In my country the far right distinguishes between legal immigrantes, who are cannon fodder for exploitative industry and therefore good, and illegal immigrants, who are criminals and need to be segregated in detection camps.
Both types in any case ar discouraged from marrying the locals (public officers are resistant) and prevented from practicing their religion in public by local legislation (the national one is vague).
For one time I feel my country is ahead of the US 🤣😅😭 maybe it is because we invented fassm after all.

Aside from the fact this is coming from Musk and Trump.
What do y'all think about this policy?
- I think they are trying to flood the market with cheaper foreign workers that business owners have more control over so they can lower the wages of everyone else. More Americans will be out of work as they are replace by H1Bs. They'll have to accept lower pay and less benefits to continue in tech or switch careers which is hard. The H1Bs will eventually be hated especially among MAGA and it won't be their fault as they are just pawns in this Lex Luther wannabe's world view. The quality of software will drop because you get what you pay for. Maybe Trump or Musk will do something stupid and piss off India (maybe a tariff or trade war) and I assume the Indians worldwide will side with India mostly which can lead to more compromises in our critical software.
  So I think it will be like when manufacturing jobs were shipped to China and look how that turned out for American workers, goods, and security.
  
  Maybe. They're supposed to show that they can't find a domestic worker to do the same job, regardless of pay. I don't know how often that's audited, though.
- Tech has always preferred H1B workers, since they can't simply leave the job they were hired for and are effectively in indentured servitude.
- The H1B system is very flawed, but cutting them down is not the answer. Now I don't trust the Trump administration to take productive steps towards fixing the system, and it'll probably be heavily abused but at least it's not ceding ground to MAGA.

Wait… did we not see this coming?
- Depends on if you're a MAGA faithful or not. Because those are the folks that expect now that their votes mean nothing to him, to somehow still be important.

why would trumps opinion matter???
- He's obviously one of those 'my advisors told me this was so' people. No credible opinion of his own.

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