MAGA Ignites After Musk and Ramaswamy H-1B Comments

The honeymoon for Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy is officially over.

Trump’s two high-profile Trump allies have openly come out promoting H-1B visas for key and very high-paying positions, and it is not sitting well with the MAGA faithful.

We Need More Intelligent People

Sometimes, it is not what you say but how you say it, and I think that is what is really not sitting well with MAGA regarding the immigration comments made by Musk and Ramaswamy.

On importing more high-end talent to the United States, Musk stated, "There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent. It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley. The number of people who are super-talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low.”

That struck a few nerves, but then Ramaswamy added, "American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence. 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."

The comments were taken as a slap in the face by many in the MAGA universe, especially since Donald Trump ran promising to tighten up immigration. Some of Donald Trump’s biggest supporters in Congress were also upset over the comments.

MAGA Revolts

Former presidential candidate Nikki Haley (yes, I know she is not MAGA), who has butted heads with Ramaswamy in the past, had no problem calling them both out after the comments, stating, "There is nothing wrong with American workers or American culture. 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."

Matt Gaetz, who was Donald Trump’s initial pick for AG, added, "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. We did not ask them to engineer an immigration policy."

Laura Loomer, who has raised hell on social media on behalf of Donald Trump, went after them as well, stating, "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."

Republican strategist Scott Jennings also threw a jab at Ramaswamy, stating, “Somebody got stuffed in a locker, I’m not going to say who. Look, I think there’s a way to solve this and talk about this that doesn’t denigrate all of American culture. I mean, I’m now understanding more and more how he got 100 votes in Iowa or whatever it was he got during the Iowa Caucus.”

Trump Chimes In

While social media was blowing up with comments from MAGA pushing back against the two of them, Donald Trump poured some gasoline on the fire. He responded to the outrage, stating, “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.”

The way I see it, there are two elephants in the room that nobody is discussing. First, when we bring these H-1B workers in for these positions, they are often taking far less for the position than an American worker in the same category would accept as a salary. Hiring in this fashion starts driving down the average wage for what should be top-salaried positions.

Second, if we are lacking people to fill these positions, it says a lot about our educational system. We have professors more interested in pushing ideology than education, so our students are not coming out of school with the same skills as they are in other countries where this is not an issue.

The fact that Trump came out so quickly to support Musk and Ramaswamy’s statements on this, as well as his admission that he likes to make use of H-1B visas, is going to be a problem for Trump. When Donald Trump was running for office, I had stated that if Trump did not deliver 100%, he was going to hurt the party more than help it. Trump is not even in office yet, and he already has some of his biggest backers pushing back… that is not a good sign for 2026 and beyond.