Far-right activists clashed online with billionaire Elon Musk and other supporters of President-elect
Donald Trump over the need for a skilled-worker immigration program that has long been a lifeblood for Silicon Valley — signifying a potential rift between Trump’s core nationalist base and technology executives who have come to support him.
The fight that spilled into public view over the holiday week could preview a wedge within Trump’s coalition over how to execute immigration policy, an issue that animated Trump’s White House campaign.
The controversy spread across X after far-right activist Laura Loomer on Monday criticized Trump’s choice to name Sriram Krishnan, a technology entrepreneur and investor who was born in India, as his senior policy adviser on artificial intelligence. She pointed to Krishnan’s previous support for removing some caps on H-1B visas, a program allowing foreigners with technical skills to work in the United States. The policy is “in direct opposition” to Trump’s agenda, Loomer wrote.
The critique ran headlong into tension with some of Trump’s closest advisers, notably Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk; David Sacks who will be the president-elect’s AI and crypto czar; and Vivek Ramaswamy, who will co-lead a commission to cut government spending. “‘Normalcy’ doesn’t cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent,” Ramaswamy said. “And if we pretend like it does, we’ll have our a--es handed to us by China.”
The online fight sparked a slew of racist posts from Loomer falsely describing Indians as “third world invaders" with low IQs, while saying it is fueling a “civil war” between Trump’s far-right base and the “tech bros” that have come to support his upcoming administration.
Notable Republicans, including former GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley, championed Loomer’s position. “There is nothing wrong with American workers or American culture,” she said Thursday on X. “We should be investing and prioritizing in Americans, not foreign workers.”
Musk,
who once held an H-1B visa and has relied on the program to employ thousands of Tesla employees, said the program is a crucial way technology companies recruit the best engineering talent to compete globally. “The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low,” Musk wrote on X on Christmas. “If you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be.”
The online feud reflects the challenges that Trump will have holding together the delicate political coalition that delivered him the White House, which included unprecedented levels of financial support from Musk and other Silicon Valley billionaires.
“It’s a sign of future conflicts,” said Samuel Hammond, a senior economist at the Foundation for American Innovation. “This is like the pregame.”
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