The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, says that he “will go to war” on the issue of H-1B visa. The owner of Tesla, X and SpaceX urged the right-wing politicians of the United States to “take a step back” from scrapping the H-1B Visa, which allows foreign nationals to be employed by businesses in the US. Nationalists feel that the H-1B visa is an attack on the sovereignty of the state by inducting ‘outsiders’. However, many American businesses deploy skilled foreign nationals to make it big in the global market.
“The reason I am in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of the H-1B visa,” said Musk.
H-1B and the Indians
Numerically, approximately 2.65 lakh H-1B visas were issued by the US government in fiscal year 2023. Out of this, 72 percent went to Indian nationals. This is because it is difficult to find hard technical skills within the US. Skilled Indian professionals fill this gap by being employed in varied positions from customer care services to website coding.
Along with this, the top four Indian IT companies that have their operations in the US obtained approvals for around 20,000 employees to work on H-1B visas. These companies are Infosys, TCS, HCL and Wipro. This data was collaborated by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The comments by Elon Musk came after the controversy prompted by the appointment of Sriram Krishnan as an advisor on artificial intelligence policy in the upcoming Trump administration. Krishnan favours more skilled immigrants to come to work in the US under the H-1B programme. The right-winger Laura Loomer critically responded to Krishna’s stance as opposing the ‘America first policy’. She also said that technical executives in America aligned themselves with Trump so that they could benefit and enrich themselves.
Born in South Africa, Elon Musk was once on an H-1B visa himself.
Elon Musk and the Trump Government
Earlier this year in November, Elon Musk was appointed by Trump to lead the Department of Government Efficiency with the newly elected US government. Musk has been a close ally of the US president-elect, Donald Trump.
Elon Musk, the most important ally of the Republican president has unleashed a war of words against him.
“Take a big step back and F***Y******* in the face. I will go to war on this issue, the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.,” Musk said.
Musk’s upright language is being seen as critical since he has been a confidant of Trump during the presidential elections of 2024 and even before. Trump’s march to victory in this presidential election was the biggest political comeback in the history of the United States.
The discourse on immigration to the US is centred around the illegal entry of individuals via the US-Mexico border. The far-right Republicans see this as an attack on the nation. Immigration was a hot topic in this year’s presidential fight also, where the Trump side promised to shut down illegal migration at the Southern border and start a mass deportation effort.
On the other side, technology companies benefit from the H-1B Programme for getting skilled workers, such as software engineers, and scientists. These hard-to-fill positions are important for the development of all technical ventures and business innovation in the US.
However, critics think that foreign nationals undercut opportunities for US citizens. What is awaited is a response from President Trump, who has earlier called the H-1B programme ‘very bad’ and ‘unfair’ for US workers in the year he ran for the presidency, the first time, in 2016.
