Elon Musk’s fight with Maga reveals split on immigration within Trump’s circle

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The battle over immigration between Elon Musk and Maga’s supporters pointed to a fracture between Donald Trump’s new supporters in Silicon Valley and his more radical base.

The rift over immigration policy and visa schemes for foreign workers stems from Trump’s appointment of former Andreessen Horowitz partner Sriram Krishnan as senior White House adviser on artificial intelligence.

The move sparked a backlash from Trump’s “Make America Great Again” X base that quickly turned into a debate over H-1B visas, a program aimed at high-skilled foreign workers critical to U.S. tech groups.

Citing a post in which Krishnan supported eliminating green cards to “open up skilled immigration,” far-right activist Laura Loomer said: in X’s post on Monday that “it was alarming to see the number of career leftists who are now being appointed to serve in the Trump administration when they share views that are directly at odds with Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda.”

Representatives from around the world jumped into the debate, with far-right activists supporting Lumer, who in turn attacked tech leaders in the president-elect’s orbit, including: Musk and David Sachs, whom Trump appointed to the White House AI and crypto czar and is going to work closely with Krishnan.

Musk, himself an immigrant to the U.S., advocated hiring highly skilled foreign workers.There is a “severe shortage of extremely talented and motivated engineers” in America. he told X on Wednesday. “It comes down to him. Do you want America to WIN or do you want America to LOSE? If you force the best talent in the world to play on the other side, America WILL LOSE.”

The split raises questions about whether two very different wings of Trump’s constituency — some of America’s most powerful tech executives and far-right activists — will be able to coexist.

Tech executives, historically the targets of Trump’s ire, have went up In recent weeks, the charmer has been slathering on the president-elect, donating to his inaugural fund and dining with him at Mar-a-Lago.

“Big tech leaders think they’re running things now,” Loomer wrote in X on Thursday. “One day they will [rub] Trump is on the wrong track and it will get worse. The showdown between Maga and the tech bros is going to be glorious.”

The online sparring focused on Musk, who has taken on the role of Trump confidante after becoming one of his top cheerleaders and bankers during his presidential campaign. The president-elect has put billionaire and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy in charge of cutting government spending and federal regulations.

A: long post on X On Thursday, Ramaswamy said skilled migration was needed because of an American culture of “mediocrity over excellence,” prompting further backlash from Maga’s supporters.

On Thursday, Musk turned to sports analogies to try to quell the backlash online. I mean bringing in the 0.1% of engineering talent through legal immigration as necessary for America to continue to win.” he wrote in X.

“It’s like bringing in the Jokic’s or the Wemby’s of the world to help your entire team (who are mostly Americans) win in the NBA,” Musk added, referring to the US basketball league’s foreign-born players.

Krishnan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Visas, including the H-1B program, have been central to the development of Silicon Valley and remain so in sustaining America’s leading technology sector.

“The H-1B is extremely important to Silicon Valley,” said Hiba Anwer, a partner at Erickson Immigration Group win over a large number of people.”

The U.S. government allows 85,000 new beneficiaries each fiscal year.Denial rates soared during Trump’s first presidency because of the policy, which was later ruled illegal by the courts.

Unlike other visa categories, “you don’t have to be born in a certain country, you don’t have to work for the same company in a foreign office, and the bar of proof is not as high,” Anwer said.

In the race to stay ahead of China in technological developments, from semiconductors to AI, attracting talent is vital for the US tech sector.

“There are overwhelming comments from the executives I speak to about the complexity of getting people here and how that hurts their ability to innovate,” said Daniel Newman, CEO of The Futurum Group.

“If you look at the biggest advances in innovation, skills, engineering and technology are often started by people who came here on visas,” he added.