One of President-elect Trump’s significant achievements in his 2024 campaign was bridging the gap between the grassroots supporters of the MAGA movement and the financial resources and technological expertise of entrepreneurs who have traditionally supported the Democratic party. However, there are indications that the pro-American values of the movement that propelled Trump to the presidency in 2016 and again in 2024 may clash with the individuals Trump has chosen to modernize the American government.
In recent days, X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter, has become a hotbed for discussions involving figures like Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and others advocating for an increase in “high-skill” immigration through expanding H1B visas, which permit the employment of foreign workers. This has sparked debate with many loyal Trump supporters who view H1B visas as a method for corporations to replace American workers with cheap labor.
This was the setup for the discussion.
No, we need more like double that number yesterday!
The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low.
Think of this like a pro sports team: if you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 25, 2024
Your understanding of the situation is upside-down and backwards.
Naturally, both my companies and I would rather hire Americans, and we already do so. It is a much simpler process compared to navigating the arduous and time-consuming procedures involved in obtaining work visas.
HOWEVER, there is a dire shortage of extremely…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 25, 2024
The conversation got spicy, with Musk getting inundated with anecdotes of American workers being forced out of employment in the tech sector by H1B visa holders.
They ratioed Elon Musk 💀 pic.twitter.com/wv0VSQ47Gk
— Zoomer Alcibiades (@HellenicVibes) December 25, 2024
American employees were replaced by cheaper Indian H1Bs more willing to relocate. Labor costs drove hiring, not skills. Fewer than 20 percent of H1Bs Cognizant sponsored since 2020 hold a masters degree or higher. IT companies use the visas to fill lower level roles. pic.twitter.com/Cs17wWrshD
— Rubirosa (@rubirosarevival) December 25, 2024
Regardless of my view on the subject (and I do see H1B visas as a way for businesses to depress wages and create a captive and compliant workforce), I admire Musk’s willingness to duke it out with all comers. That is something that would have been impossible with Jack Dorsey’s Twitter.
Vivek Ramaswamy, though, is a nerve. He believes that Americans are not culturally adapted to working in the tech field.
The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if…
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) December 26, 2024
The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH:
Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.
A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.
…
That’s the work we have cut out for us, rather than wallowing in victimhood & just wishing (or legislating) alternative hiring practices into existence. I’m confident we can do it.
This drew some good counterpoints.
According to Census Bureau data, the US has more than 2x as many American workers with STEM degrees as there are STEM jobs. And many of the STEM jobs that do exist go to foreigners, because our immigration system allows them to legally be paid less.
But sure, it’s the tv shows. https://t.co/BW1Qegib6P
— Rachel Bovard (@rachelbovard) December 26, 2024
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.
— Rep. Mike Collins (@RepMikeCollins) December 26, 2024
This is an argument, not a new one — see , , and — and it is not going away.
On the one hand, Musk and Ramaswamy are right. The US must make it easier for top-shelf talent to come to America. That isn’t a problem for major tech players like Google, Meta, etc., because their brand draws the best, and the work environment doesn’t tolerate mediocrity. On the other hand, there is no doubt that run-of-the-mill H1Bs are not superior to American workers. Their competitive advantage is that they are cheap and don’t cause labor problems.
As much as we don’t like to hear it, Ramaswamy has a point about the culture we’re developing. One of the responses to his critique was this.
Dear, @VivekGRamaswamy, my counter take….. 😇
Several years ago, Florida Power and Light won the prestigious international Edward Demming Award for excellence in multi-platform engineering, efficiency superiority and total quality in the process of energy management.
However,… https://t.co/68AKfwteA3
— TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) December 26, 2024
You see, the reviewers couldn’t actually quantify the reason why the Florida-based energy company was so successful. In response the FPL field leadership laughed, took out magic markers and wrote on the back of their hard hats: “WE’RE NOT GOOD, WE’RE RUCKY.”
A few years later, every single Kuwaiti oil field was blown up by Saddam Hussein. Global analysts and think-tanks proclaimed it would take 5 years to cap them all off and restart the Kuwait oil pumping industry. Well, the Kuwaiti’s and Saudi’s called Texans, who had them all capped and back in working order in 6 months.
We are a nation that knows how to get shit done.
A few more years pass, and the Northern Chile mine workers were trapped two miles underground. The eyes of the world began to tear as the word spread. Most began to whisper no one could save them. Who did they call for help? A bunch of hick miners from USA coal country who went down there, worked on the fly, engineered the rescue equipment on site, and saved every one of them.
Yup, that’s our America. Ingenuity born from freedom.
The problem is we are no longer the America that produced the guys who put out the Kuwaiti oil field fires and rescued Chilean miners. We are a nation that has permitted its primary and secondary education system to be dumbed down to the lowest conceivable denominator and made a high school diploma a participation trophy…and we’re trying to do that to our university systems. We don’t care about performance or standards, and our traditional work ethic is probably an artifact of white supremacy.
But if we are all going to remain in the same big political tent, we have to come to some agreement on how we can attract the stream of talent that we need while ensuring that every American tech worker who wants a job has one before allowing the first H1B visa to be granted. Otherwise, we are not going to have a coalition that makes America great again; we will be a loose confederation of warring interests that will blow up in very short order.
