Musk and Ramaswamy ignite MAGA war over skilled immigration and American ‘mediocrity’

Trump world warriors Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have ignited an intra-MAGA battle with their proposals to increase immigration visas for high-skill workers.

Musk and Ramaswamy, who have been tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to lead his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), argued that American culture has not prioritized education enough, and therefore foreign workers are needed for tech companies like Musk’s SpaceX and Tesla. 

The pair saw their conservative sway skyrocket throughout the 2024 election as they grew closer to Trump, but the wealthy businessmen now find themselves butting heads with Trump’s most ardent base that wants to see Trump make good on promises of immigration restrictions and promoting the U.S. labor workforce. 

Trump restricted access to foreign worker visas during his first administration and has critiqued the H-1B visas program, which allows U.S. companies to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations.  

“There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent. It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley,” Musk wrote on X, arguing the tech industry needs to “double” the number of engineers working in the U.S. today. 

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“The number of people who are super-talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low,” he added. 

Musk likened recruiting foreign workers to assembling a sports team. “You need to recruit top talent wherever they may be. That enables the whole TEAM to win.”

Ramaswamy, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from India, backed up Musk and took shots at American society. 

 “American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence,” he wrote on X. 

“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad [sic] champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”

Those comments didn’t sit well with conservative crusaders like pundit Ann Coulter, commentator Laura Loomer, former Rep. Matt Gaetz and even former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.

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“There is nothing wrong with American workers or American culture,” Haley wrote in a post on the social platform X. “All you have to do is look at the border and see how many want what we have. We should be investing and prioritizing in Americans, not foreign workers.”

Haley and Ramaswamy have a long history of butting heads, starting with their competition in the 2024 Republican primary.

“We welcomed the tech bros when they came running our way to avoid the 3rd grade teacher picking their kid’s gender – and the obvious Biden/Harris economic decline,” Gaetz, R-Fla., wrote in a social media post on Thursday. “We did not ask them to engineer an immigration policy.”

Right-wing rabble-rouser Loomer said: “Our country was built by white Europeans, actually. Not third-world invaders from India. It’s not racist against Indians to want the original MAGA policies I voted for. I voted for a reduction in H-1B visas. Not an extension.”

The skirmish kicked up after Trump nominated venture capitalist Sriram Krishnan to serve as his AI policy adviser. That nomination triggered anti-Indian backlash, and critics highlighted his past support for lifting the cap on green cards. 

“The Woodstock generation managed to build out aerospace, the one before went to the moon, America was doing great. Underlying your post is that we were all living in squalor until being rescued by H-1B’s. Then why did everyone want to come here?” right-wing personality Mike Cernovich responded to Ramaswamy on X.