“Civil war” between Trump supporters. All because of a visa that gave Musk residence

Controversy on social media that opened up a rift between Republicans placed Trump on Musk’s side, against personalities like Steve Bannon. At issue is a visa given to qualified workers, which has already served Elon Musk. And the businessman “goes to war” to defend it.

Vivek Ramaswamywho will co-lead a commission to cut government spending, in his X account that “‘normality’ is not enough in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent, and if we pretend it is, China will give us the turn your head.”

He was referring to a controversy led by him and other US Republican figures, which had as its center of discussion a visa for qualified work that aims to provide opportunities for talented people in the area, that is, technology, offering them residence in the country: the H-1B visa.

These visas are normally valid for three-year periodsalthough their holders can extend them or apply for green cards.

Also Steve Bannondescribed by as a longtime confidant of Trumpcriticized “big tech oligarchs” for supporting the H-1B program and considered immigration a threat to Western civilization.

Laura Loomera far-right activist who has 1.4 million followers on X, then published a series of racist posts, describing Indians as “third world invaders” with low IQand calling this discussion thread a “civil war” between Trump’s far-right base and the “tech bros” who came to support his future administration.

Already Elon Muska naturalized American citizen born in South Africa, already had an H-1B visa, and his electric car company Tesla obtained 724 visas this year to employ people from other countries, recalls .

Tech companies particularly rely on H-1B visas — which are capped at 85,000 new visas per year — to help recruit talent.

Amazon, with 3,871 new H-1B employees, had the most new petitions approved in 2024, according to data compiled by the nonpartisan National Foundation for American Policy. Google had 1,058 requests approved. The “giants” of Silicon Valley are, therefore, those who make the most use of the measure.

“The number of people who are super talented AND super motivated engineers in the US is very low,” Musk wrote on X. “If you want your TEAM to win the championship, have to recruit the best talent wherever they are“.

There were hundreds among the coordinator of Trump’s new Department of Efficiency and other Republicans who called for the end of the visa.

The businessman even said that he is willing to go to “war” for this idea, and his supporters began calling Loomer a “terrorist like Al Qaeda”.