Brandon Bell/AP
Less than a month before Donald Trump returns to office, two of his most ardent allies have plunged into a fierce online debate over immigration, specifically the government’s visa program that allows American companies to hire so-called “highly skilled” foreign workers.
The clash started on Monday with Laura Loomer, the far-right social media character known for her virulent racism, condemning Trump’s decision to name Sriram Krishnan, a tech investor who was born in India, as a senior adviser on artificial intelligence. Tech leaders, including Elon Musk, weighed in to defend the practice of hiring foreign workers, specifically through the government’s H-1B visa program. (Musk, a naturalized US citizen from South Africa, once held the visa.) The debate has since devolved into a relentless string of petty insults—Loomer likened tech billionaires to “termites” at Mar-a-Lago; Musk called Loomer a troll—as well as accusations of censorship on X as retaliation. At a different point, Vivek Ramaswamy chimed in to register his support for hiring foreign workers. The former presidential candidate and now-DOGE partner blamed an American culture that has so “venerated mediocrity over excellence” that tech companies have no other option but to hire engineers from abroad.
One might be tempted to view this MAGA infighting as a signal that Musk may not be as extreme as the other faithful. Could this mean that the tech billionaire who openly embraced some of MAGA’s most pernicious racism and conspiracy theories is capable of restraint, at least when it comes to matters of business and the economy? Such a takeaway from this online war would be a mistake. After all, the tech billionaire, who just last week endorsed Germany’s far-right AfD party, is simply acting as he always does: framing any argument to be of service to himself. For him, immigration policy should be crafted strictly in terms of what is economically beneficial to a company, or individual’s bottom line. Never mind immigrants who are deemed to be less than “highly skilled.”
As for Loomer, at least you can say she’s consistent: her attacks against Musk are just the newest iteration of her long record of xenophobia and shit-posting.
So who will win this MAGA war? Trump has yet to publicly comment on the acrimony—much less the H-1B program that set this all off. But it seems safe to say that the president-elect is unlikely to enjoy Musk’s continued dominance in the headlines, offering yet another opportunity for more of the interpersonal chaos that has always been central to MAGA.
Finally, after letting the conflict play out, Trump weighed in on the matter in a Saturday telephone interview with the New York Post. In it, he stated, “I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them. I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program.”
So this seems to mean, that in this round, the score is Musk 1/Loomer 0.
Update, December 28: This story has been updated to reflect Donald Trump’s position on the H-1B visa program.
