Donald Trump backs Elon Musk and H-1B visas amid MAGA meltdown

TOI Correspondent from Washington: President-elect Donald Trump threw his weight behind Elon Musk and his support for H-1B visas though the hot-button issue continued to roil the MAGA sphere over the weekend, boiling over into anti-Indian invective.
American nativists raged against big tech and Indian guest workers for allegedly exploiting the H-1B system to displace American-born candidates, as MAGA hardliners began directing their anger at even Indian-Americans and legal immigrants, asking them to ” return to your country.”
Despite previously saying he opposes H-1B visas, Trump shocked his MAGA base on Sunday by siding with Musk in the fiery debate, telling the New York Post: “I’ve always liked visas, I’ve always been in favor of visas. That’s why we have them.”
“I have a lot of H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve believed in H-1B. I’ve used it many times. It’s a great program,” Trump added, even as MAGA hardliners blasted “tech bros” like Musk , accusing them of baiting Trump to enrich himself with the argument that skilled foreign workers are needed to maintain American preeminence.
Trump himself was excoriated for using guest worker visas, including the H-1B, H-2A (which provides temporary visas to agricultural workers), and the H-2B program (for seasonal workers in the tourism and hospitality sectors) to staff his properties, prompting him to to come out in support of the existing system despite having embraced MAGA’s “American Workers first” fervor in the past.
During his 2016 presidential campaign, he had promised to “forever end the use of H-1B as a cheap labor program and impose an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program.” The promise was never kept, although the first Trump administration tightened H-1B rules as part of an “extreme vetting” approach that made visas more difficult to obtain.
Musk and other tech stalwarts have argued that the H-1B visa program is critical to ensuring that U.S. companies can find highly skilled workers around the world to maintain American preeminence. “The reason I’m in America with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H-1B,” the South Africa-born Musk, who himself was an H-1B visa recipient before becoming a US citizen, critics told his platform X.
As the debate grew more contentious, and MAGA hardliners accused him and his “tech bros” of exerting superior influence over Trump and misrepresenting H-1B “fraud” to enrich themselves, Musk exploded. “Take a big step back and F–K YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue that you cannot possibly understand,” he added.
MAGA hardliners, including Trump surrogate Steve Bannon, agent provocateur Laura Loomer and commentator Ann Coulter among them, joined forces against Musk and so-called Big Tech for betraying American workers. “Somebody please notify ‘Child Protective Services’ – need to do a ‘wellness check’ on this little child,” scoffed Bannon, a former White House adviser and Trump adviser, though Democrats and liberals appeared to enjoy the circular fire in MAGA.
Loomer, who has been banished from Trump’s inner circle, went on to take on Musk on her own platform X, accusing him of censoring her.
“Forget about immigration for a second. The greatest threat to our country, our freedom and humanity in the unchecked power of technocrat billionaires who have god complexes, access to defense contracts and openly declare war on dissent,” she wrote.