Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, vowed to go to “war” to protect the US visa program for foreign technical workers, known as H-1B, late Friday amid a dispute between longtime supporters of – US president Donald Trump and his latest supporters he got from the tech industry.
In a post on the social media platform X, which he owns, Musk said: “The reason I'm in America is with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other American-made companies strong because of H1B.”
“I will go to war on this issue that you cannot understand,” he said.
Musk, a naturalized US citizen born in South Africa, has held an H-1B visa, and his electric car company Tesla received 724 visas this year. H-1B visas are usually issued for three years, although holders can extend them or apply for permanent residency.
Musk's tweet was directed at Trump supporters and immigration hardliners, who have been increasingly calling for the H-1B visa program to be scrapped amid a heated debate over immigration and the role of immigrants. skilled and foreign workers brought into the country on work visas.
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Trump has so far been silent on the issue. Trump's transition team did not respond to a request for comment on Musk's tweets and the H-1B visa debate.
In the past, Trump has said that he is willing to give more work visas to skilled workers. He has also promised to deport all immigrants who are in the US illegally, impose tariffs to create more jobs for American citizens, and severely restrict immigration .
The case highlights how tech leaders like Musk – who has played a key role in the president's campaign, advising on key staff and policy areas – are now pulling study from its base.
The US tech industry relies on the government's H-1B visa program to hire skilled foreign workers to help run its companies, a workforce that critics say is shrinking wages for American citizens.
US president-elect Donald Trump continues to round out his team with staunch MAGA supporters, including Mike Waltz, a Florida congressman and outspoken critic of Justin Trudeau, guest Fox News Pete Hegseth, and entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Former Trump rival Marco Rubio is expected to be named Secretary of State.
The change was canceled earlier this week by far-right activists who criticized Trump's selection of Sriram Krishnan, an Indian-American venture capitalist, to be an adviser on artificial intelligence, saying the impact of the Trump administration's immigration policies.
On Friday, Steve Bannon, a longtime confidant of Trump, criticized “big tech oligarchs” for supporting the H-1B program and casting immigration as a threat to Western civilization.
In response, Musk and many other tech billionaires drew a line between what they see as legal immigration and illegal immigration.
Musk spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars helping Trump to be elected president in November. He has posted regularly this week about the lack of homegrown talent to fill the positions needed within America's tech companies.
