By Nandita Bose
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday sided with main supporter and billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk in a public debate over the usage of the H-1B visa, saying that He totally supported the international tech employee program. disputed by a few of his supporters.
Trump’s remarks observe a sequence of social media posts from Musk, the CEO of Tesla (NASDAQ:) and SpaceX, who vowed late Friday to go to “warfare” to defend the visa program for international employees within the know-how sector.
Trump, who moved to restrict the usage of visas throughout his first presidency, advised the New York Put up on Saturday that he additionally favored the visa program.
“I’ve many H-1B visas on my properties. I imagine within the H-1B. I’ve used it many occasions. It’s a nice program,” he was quoted as saying.
Musk, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in South Africa, held an H-1B visa, and his electrical automobile firm Tesla was granted 724 visas this yr. H-1B visas sometimes final three years, though holders can lengthen them or apply for a inexperienced card.
The altercation was sparked earlier this week by far-right activists who criticized Trump’s alternative of Sriram Krishnan, an Indian American enterprise capitalist, as a synthetic intelligence advisor, saying he would affect coverage immigration insurance policies of the Trump administration.
Musk’s tweet was geared toward Trump supporters and immigration hardliners, who’re more and more calling for an finish to the H-1B visa program, amid a heated debate over the immigration and the place of expert immigrants and international employees delivered to the nation on work visas.
On Friday, Steve Bannon, a longtime Trump confidant, criticized “huge tech oligarchs” for his or her assist of the H-1B program and framed immigration as a menace to Western civilization.
In response, Musk and lots of different tech billionaires have drawn a line between what they take into account authorized immigration and unlawful immigration.
Trump has promised to deport all immigrants who’re in the USA illegally, roll out tariffs to assist create extra jobs for Americans and severely limit immigration.
The visa problem exhibits how tech executives like Musk — who performed a major function within the presidential transition, advising on key personnel and coverage areas — are actually attracting the eye of his base.
The U.S. tech trade depends on the federal government’s H-1B visa program to rent expert international employees to assist run its firms, a workforce that critics say undercuts the wages of U.S. residents .
Musk spent greater than 1 / 4 of a billion {dollars} to assist Trump get elected in November. He has been posting usually this week concerning the lack of native expertise to fill all of the wanted positions at U.S. tech firms.
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