Mega vs Billionaires

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Donald Trump is not yet in office, but his strange political coalition of anti-immigrant magnates and globalist billionaires is already beginning to crumble.

The most recent factor was the appointment of Sriram Krishnan as Trump’s top policy adviser on artificial intelligence. Krishnan is an American of Indian descent and has close ties to Trump and Elon Musk (he facilitated the evolution of Twitter to X). Krishnan, like Musk, wants to make it easier for skilled foreign workers to enter the U.S. through the H-1B temporary visa.

Silicon Valley depends on these visas because of the shortage of skilled tech workers in the U.S. The Maga population relies on them, not only because they give preference to foreign workers, but because they can depress American tech wages. According to a 2020 paper by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, 60 percent of H1-B visas offered by the top 30 employers pay well below the local median wage. Trump’s own position on this is unsurprisingly reversed. Now he seems to support the visas, in 2016, he called them a “cheap work program”.

The gaffe sparked a viral online debate between Musk and Maga activist Laura Lomer, a self-described “proud Islamophobe” who wants H1-B jobs awarded to American science, technology, engineering and math students. “Our country was built by white Europeans. . . They are not third world invaders from India,” she posted on X. “Looking for Maga policies that I voted for is not racism against Indians. I voted for the reduction of H-1B visas, not an extension.

Meanwhile, Musk defended his visa, writing: “The reason I entered the US was on an H1B with the most critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies.” Take a big step back and smack yourself in the face. I will wage war on this matter, which you cannot understand.

There are many lessons to be learned from all of this. But as usual with anything Trump-related, one wishes the character actors portraying them were a little less toxic.

Lomer’s posts are xenophobic, but he’s brave enough to stand up to Muck and raise an important issue, which is how to ensure that US workers are properly supported in the global competition. One of the reasons why the US launched Trump was because the state had failed to do so in the manufacturing sector since the late 1980s.

Musk, on the other hand, is a self-interested hyper-capitalist, with no interest in using his power to intimidate people. Loomer said she lost her X-Verify badge and her ability to monetize her posts after getting into an online battle with him.

But he is also right that America needs more engineers than it needs. Moreover, the success of the South African-born entrepreneur – like many in Silicon Valley and the US C-suite – demonstrates what may be argued to be America’s greatest strength, its openness to immigrants.

This fight is important because it reveals a fundamental rift that will only grow within the Trump coalition. Maganese and globalists disagree not only on immigration, but on defense, jobs and free speech. The biggest overlap of this alliance was the desire to topple the previous government. Now that they have it, I think it’s unlikely they’ll get together on anything else.

There are two other things about the H1-B dust-up. First, Democrats are looking to make hay with the divisions that are evident in Trumpland. A memo written by a small group of lawyers, entrepreneurs and academics circulated last week said, “The Loomer-Musk conflict represents a unique opportunity to forge an alliance with disaffected factions of the Republican Party, including those concerned about the tech oligarchy, free speech.” , labor rights and national security. On the latter point, Musk’s business dealings in China and reported talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin have raised concerns in the defense community.

The memo has been receiving positive feedback from some senior officials and former officials of the left, as well as academics, think tanks and union advisers. Late last week, progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders weighed in on the topic, accusing Musk of pushing H1-Bs to get “cheap” workers, not smart ones.

Watch this space carefully. The struggle for the working class between Republicans and Democrats is a political battle for the next four years and beyond.

Second, even as I find myself wondering as I write this, Trump himself has a policy proposal that could help bolster the pool of Americans qualified for good tech jobs. He proposed creating a free online university called American Academy, which would offer higher-level courses and accept transfer credits from other colleges and universities, addressing rising tuition costs and student debt. The left-leaning Washington Monthly recently praised the idea.

This type of online education, along with programs that graduate high school students with two-year college degrees, is an obvious way to rapidly train more technology workers. My one caveat – please put someone other than Mack or Loomer in charge.

rana.foroohar@ft.com