Elon Musk calls for major reform of H-1B visa program

Suggests significant hike in minimum salary and adding a yearly cost for maintaining the H-1B to attract “world’s most elite talent”

By Arun Kumar

As President-elect Donald Trump sided with Elon Musk over a virtual war between his MAGA supporters and the tech billionaire over H-1B visas, Musk called the program “broken” and in need of “major reform.”

Days after vowing to “go to war” to defend the program coveted by Indian techies, Musk took to X to outline his vision for fixing the system, which is used by Indian techies and other highly skilled foreign workers to come to the United States.

READ: Trump sides with Musk in H-1B war (December 29th, 2024) 

Musk, who himself immigrated to the US from South Africa on an H-1B visa, emphasized that reforming the program is essential to maintaining America’s edge in innovation.

He was responding to a post on X by Robert Sterling saying, “America needs to be a destination for the world’s most elite talent. But the H-1B program isn’t the way to do that.”

Musk asserted the need for the US to attract the “world’s most elite talent” and suggested raising the minimum salary for H-1B holders significantly while imposing an annual maintenance fee. According to Musk, these changes would make hiring foreign workers “materially more expensive” than hiring domestically, incentivising the US to prioritize top talent.

“Easily fixed by raising the minimum salary significantly and adding a yearly cost for maintaining the H1B, making it materially more expensive to hire from overseas than domestically,” he posted. “I’ve been very clear that the program is broken and needs major reform.”

Musk’s fresh comments come as he and Indian American entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, whom Trump has tapped to lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, face criticism from right-wing MAGA factions within Trump’s base for their support of the H-1B program.

Ramaswamy echoed Musk’s concerns, criticizing a culture that, in his words, celebrates “mediocrity over excellence.” In a post on X, he argued that the US needs to focus on rewarding intellectual achievements rather than social popularity.

Earlier, amid a war of words over H-1B visas, triggered by his appointment of Indian American venture capitalist Sriram Krishnan as a senior policy adviser for artificial intelligence, Trump told the New York post on Saturday that he’s “a believer in H-1B.”

“I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them,” Trump told the newspaper. “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,” he added.

The conflict sparked by the appointment of Krishanan, who has advocated for eliminating caps on green cards and skilled immigration programs, has spiralled into a larger debate on American workforce culture, race and immigration.

In response to a post from right-wing commentator Scott Adams that “MAGA is taking a page from Democrats on how to lose elections while feeling good about themselves,” Musk doubled down on his defense of the H-1B program, writing on X that “contemptible fools must be removed from the Republican Party, root and stem.”

In recent years Indian techies have cornered about three fourths of the annual quota of 65,000 H-1B visas for highly skilled workers plus another 20,000 visas for workers with an advanced degree in the US.

More than 700,000 people held H-1B visas in 2023, according to the American Immigration Council. They are valid for three years and can be extended for up to six.