Trump Can’t Hear You

In recent days, a debate erupted on X over the issue of legal immigration broadly, but specifically H-1B visas. It began when Sriram Krishnan, a first-generation Indian immigrant and Trump’s nominee for White House AI policy advisor, urged the removal of all caps on H-1B visas. Many were quick to question why a foreign-born tech worker, who currently resides in London, is advising Americans on their immigration policy. Even more baffling is how such an obscure figure came to occupy such a prominent post in the Trump White House. The answer, however, lies in Silicon Valley’s capture of Trump’s administration and its vested interest in the H-1B visa program.

For context, the H-1B visa program allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers with at least a bachelor’s degree, and while technically capped at 85,000, its exemptions permit hundreds of thousands of foreign hires to flood the U.S. labor force every year. In 2023, more than 386,000 people were imported through the H-1B program, down from 474,000 the prior year.

In 2016, Trump rightly condemned the program as neither high-skilled nor immigration but a ploy for companies to substitute “American workers at lower pay” with foreign workers, pledging to eliminate it with “no exceptions.” Throughout his first term, he worked to regulate the program before shutting it down completely in June 2020 during the pandemic.

Amid the renewed discourse over H-1B, Trump’s DOGE nominees Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy chimed in to voice their support for “skilled” labor. Ramaswamy suggested that foreign labor is necessary to stem a shortage of talent at home, disparaging native-born Americans' lack of work ethic in comparison to their Asian competitors and applauding tiger moms while appraising high school sleepovers. Musk likened America to a sports team, insisting that the country only stood to benefit from recruiting workers from abroad. After receiving pushback, Musk proceeded to dismiss all critics of skilled cheap labor as “racists” and demand their “root and stem” removal from the GOP. The spiraling backlash finally culminated in Musk melting down, declaring that he would go to “war” over foreign labor, and telling countless Trump supporters to f*ck themselves.

Musk and Vivek’s contemptuous disregard for native-born Americans, though a sobering revelation for many naïve conservatives, reflects a standard consensus among America’s tech elite—namely, that the country’s identity can be reduced to its function as a profit-generating apparatus, measured through Fortune 500 firms’ stock performance and corporate bottom lines. They would distill America’s welfare to points on a scoreboard or annualized quarterly growth. Yet, diminishing America to nothing more than its economic output and its citizens to interchangeable cogs in a global market overlooks what America is—not an economy, but as a people defined by their culture, values, and unique history.

While the realization that Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and the entire cadre of Silicon Valley tech elites nominated by Trump—ranging from David Sacks to Jacob Helberg—view America merely as an economic vehicle came as a shock to the hordes of enthusiastic MAGA voters who marched in lockstep with Trump until after the election was decided, it should’ve been obvious throughout. The ideological divisions between the base and Trump’s Silicon Valley donors have only become pronounced now that the Democrat boogeyman, in Kamala, has been toppled. In the absence of a partisan demarcation, it has become evident that the newly-minted Republicans of Silicon Valley share very little in common with their well-meaning compatriots. They only curried favor with tepid conservatives for their opposition to Affirmative Action and DEI. Yet what the past few days have exposed, is that their rigid insistence on meritocracy disguises a deeply-repulsive globalism. The suggestion that American citizens should be hired by American companies before non-citizens, they dismiss as DEI. Rather than viewing America as a sovereign people who its government is obliged to care for, they view the country as a vast factory and its populace as disposable parts.

Needless to say, the GOP's big tent, initially forged in opposition to the Democrats and achieving its intended goal, is now bearing its contradictions. The alliance between MAGA’s Atlanticist tech benefactors and heartland populists is unraveling, yet only one faction seems poised to emerge victorious. Despite the latent indignation from MAGA-world influencers like Jack Posobiec, Bannon, Cernovich, and Ashley St. Clair that Little Tech’s contribution to Trump’s campaign would come with concessions on foreign labor, Trump couldn’t be more unconcerned. In fact, he has found himself at odds with his own supporters and in agreement with his new donors.

Trump, in the wake of the social media firestorm, released a statement over the phone to with a New York Post reporter endorsing H-1B visas and boasting that he used it on many of his properties. Trump’s remarks on H-1B visas quickly drew swift opposition from his own side, and attention from across the political spectrum. Notably, even voices from the progressive left, now including Senator Bernie Sanders, joined arms with Trump voters to demand its termination. Amidst the outcry, many conservatives held out hope Trump would rein in his comments shortly. Others suggested that the president-elect had been misled by the reporter’s question about visas.

In an ominous sign, Trump shared Elon Musk’s post crediting America’s success to its "best and brightest" immigrants. By New Year’s Eve, it was clear Trump was in unambiguous agreement with Musk on H-1Bs, and in disagreement with himself from just 4 years ago. From his ritzy Mar-a-Lago perch, denying he ever held a contrary view, Trump emphasized the need for legal immigration and foreign labor to bring in “competent” and “smart” individuals. “We need a lot of people coming in,” he reiterated. In a final twist of the knife, on New Year's Day, he shared an article bashing his own supporters who disagreed with him on foreign labor and lauding the untold benefits of foreign labor. He has since shared an article by the New York Post clarifying his wholehearted support for the program. As disheartening as it may be, it is clear that Trump has dug in his heels in defense of Musk’s foreign labor agenda. No measure of wishful thinking will change that.

The shift in rhetoric from 2016, when Trump championed “hire American, buy American” in defiance of the globalist element within the GOP, to 2025, where he has wholly embraced it, could not be more night-and-day. While it is clear Trump of 2025 is a far cry from the Trump of 2016, age may be the least significant difference. Over the course of a decade, the people surrounding Trump have shifted from scrappy right-wing underdogs like Roger Stone and Corey Lewandowski to a host of wealthy donors—the very same he decried on the Republican debate stage in 2016. At the time, he positioned himself as an incorruptible billionaire whose immense wealth rendered him impervious to the influence of Washington's donor class.

This election, specifically, has proven that to no longer be the case. In a total reversal from his previous campaigns, 2024 saw over two-thirds of donations to Trump’s campaign come from wealthy mega donors, whereas in 2020 and 2016, small-dollar donations amounted to at least three-fourths. The largest contributors to Trump's campaign hailed from the tech world. In total, Silicon Valley shelled out a whopping $394.1 million to Trump’s campaign. Elon Musk, who founded the pro-Trump super PAC AMERICA PAC, led donations with a staggering $277 million. After Elon Musk, other major tech figures made significant contributions to Trump's 2024 campaign. Marc Andreessen donated $5.5 million, WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum contributed $5.1 million, and Sequoia Capital's Douglas Leone gave $3.8 million. The Winklevoss twins and Benjamin Horowitz each contributed $2.5 million, while Palantir’s Jacob Helberg donated $2.1 million, and Stake CEO Bijan Tehrani gave $1.3 million. Angel investor David Sacks hosted several fundraisers for Trump over the course of the campaign, with dozens of tech executives in attendance. The June 2024 fundraiser he held at his Pacific Heights mansion attracted 100 Silicon Valley moguls, priced at an exorbitant $300,000 a ticket. In September 2024, Trump's VP-elect, JD Vance, who was mentored by PayPal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, courted Silicon Valley affiliates alongside David Sacks in Los Angeles and Helberg in New York City. With Vance as its emissary, the Trump ticket spent much of the cycle selling an audience to San Francisco’s emergent clique of seed investors and entrepreneurs. Many of these new supporters, such as David Sacks, had tried to unseat Trump as late as the GOP primaries, throwing their weight behind Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. DeSantis' infamous presidential announcement, delivered on an X space in 2023, was hosted by Sacks and facilitated by Elon. Musk even donated $10 million to support DeSantis’s campaign in mid-2023, which ultimately proved stillborn by early 2024. It was only after Trump was named the presumptive nominee that Silicon Valley hedged their bets on him. Their bet paid off. No matter how tardy it came, the full-throated backing of Silicon Valley’s colloquially-named “PayPal Mafia” and allies has driven Trump backwards on foreign labor. It’s no accident that they stand to profit most from the unending influx of foreign workers permitted by H-1Bs.

This emergent donor class, fueled by the new money of the tech sector, has wrested the movement from the people to its own self-serving ends. While the original surrogates of the Trump movement were committed to its nascent nationalism even in the face of its resistance—many of whom, including Trump himself, didn't expect to actually win—the latter only flocked to Mar-a-Lago as the frailty of Biden-Harris’ neoliberalism became unignorable. Within the upcoming administration, there are immigration restrictionists like Stephen Miller and Tom Homan, but they are few and far between. The flock of vultures now circling Trump’s orbit appear to carry more stock with the president-elect than those who stood by him when it wasn’t profitable. The truth is that Trump, unlike prior years, is entirely insulated from the concerns of the middle Americans who hoisted him up as their hero, and instead captive to the opinions of moneyed advisers. These de facto lobbyists who have flattered themselves into Trump’s camp, unlike his earnest voters, do not support him out of admiration, but a cynical opportunism. They don’t see Trump as a heroic avatar, but as a popular face to mask their unpopular agenda. Trump has proved, ever the pragmatic negotiator, unreluctant to cut deals with them. As a result, he has exchanged the interests of the common folk who buoyed him to Washington—the forgotten men and women who he claimed to speak for—for the support of capricious suitors. Their newfound support of these “Tech Bros” was entirely calculated—not some magical coincidence. Trump is merely making good on the terms as of the deal he agreed to.

While his supporters lamented being “rug pulled” on social media, Trump was seen dancing with Sylvester Stallone to “Eye of the Tiger” at Mar-A-Lago. In 2016, Trump was tapped into the pulse of everyday Americans on Twitter, but now everything he sees is carefully filtered through the eyes of his advisors. Trump himself appears satisfied to bask in the afterglow of his November victory while delegating the hard policy decision to others. Unlike policy makers, the base has already served its purpose in re-electing him. He can cast them aside, coasting on his charisma—perhaps even earning the embrace of the mainstream again. Why would he burn his sudden popularity by following through on his promise of mass deportations, when he can instead limit it to gang members and criminals, as has already been suggested by members of his upcoming administration? Why would he jeopardize his new friendships with those in Silicon Valley, when they, albeit mostly Elon, essentially bought him re-election? For the first time in a long time: Trump has a lot to lose. The establishment has seemingly come to heel: The Washington Post, the LA Times, and US Today declined to endorse his opponent, tech moguls from OpenAI’s Sam Altman to Meta's Zuckerberg to Amazon's Bezos to Apple's Cook have given millions to his inaugural fund, and he has cemented his legacy as the first Republican candidate in decades to win the popular vote. The impression that Trump has, in his own words, is that, “EVERYONE WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND!”

Many conservatives have taken Trump’s acceptance into the mainstream as evidence of his triumph, but it more likely marks a détente between the establishment he once challenged and a weary man tempered by years of political warfare. Trump, the man, is being welcomed back into the fold, but he had to make compromises on his ideas. He can secure the stamp of the status quo, but only by ceding the interests of his original backers. Seeing these two things as uncontradictory, Trump may believe the battle has been won. However, the war to reclaim the nation will ultimately be decided by those inhabiting the White House in the years ahead, engaged in the tedious work of governance. Unfortunately for him, politics demands more than campaigning, it comes with the burden of governing. On foreign labor, it seems Trump no longer cares to stand in the breach between the native-born American worker and the rootless capitalists who seek to replace them.

It is worth dismantling the notion often peddled by proponents of foreign labor that the American worker is simply not good enough. Vivek Ramaswamy suggested that companies have no choice but to hire foreigners given Americans’ laziness. This is contradicted by the numbers, which indicate Americans are the most productive workers of any nationality. Despite the growing productivity of American workers, salaries haven’t kept up and instead remained essentially stagnant since 1979. This growing productivity-pay gap can be largely attributed to the outsourcing and importation of labor, where Americans are pitted against third-worlders who will slave away for cheap. A recent study by researchers found Deloitte paid foreign accountants with H-1B visas 10% less than their American counterparts. It’s quite difficult to compete in America, when you don’t just have to be more qualified than the next American, but also settle for lower pay than the next 12 third worlders. While reducing the quality of life for fresh-faced STEM graduates who are likely already saddled with college debts, H-1B serves to line the pockets of Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, and Tesla. Trump acutely recognized the disadvantage H-1B visas brought to American workers in prior years, but now seems to have dropped all opposition.

The argument that Silicon Valley, and Trump, have settled on is that America would be foolish not to recruit the Steph Currys and LeBron Jameses of the world. Ignoring the fact that the O-1 visa already fulfills this role, selecting for the top .01% of global talent, the H-1B visa offers nothing that American workers cannot. The vast majority of H-1B visa holders have, as determined in a 2013 study by the EPI, talent lesser or equal to their American peers. In an already-oversaturated job market, there is no excuse for the importation of foreign workers. Elon Musk’s particular insistence on dying on the hill of foreign labor can be explained by his own companies’ reliance on foreign labor, not to merely supplement its workforce, but to substitute it for marginal profit. Elon’s own cash cow, Tesla, laid off 2,688 employees in Texas between 2022 and 2023 while simultaneously approving 2,639 H-1B visas for foreign workers." The evidence is clear: skilled foreign labor has the singular effect of displacing American workers and suppressing wages. The incentive of billionaires who champion it is obvious: importing South Asians who will compliantly subsist on half the wage of an American is far more profitable than pesky workers who will demand a living wage. While the perils of foreign labor are clear in its immediate impact on wages, its greatest downsides are present in culture, not economics.

The influx of foreign workers into American culture—where the difference between an Ohio redneck and a Hindu from Mumbai couldn't be more stark—presents significant cultural challenges. Hypothetically, a South Asian could match or even exceed the economic output of a White American, but they will always be foreign, unless the country itself becomes foreign first. Opening up America’s workforce, not just by extending temporary visas but also by granting permanent green cards to foreign graduates vowed on David Sacks' All-In Podcast, will create a more globally competitive, but ultimately less familiar country for those already here. Where Trump insists that citizens and non-citizens be given the same opportunity in America, he has forgotten the meaning of nationalism—not the prioritization of colorblind merit, but of a nation and the people synonymous with it.

Merit, after all, cannot be judged so universally; what is excellent to one nation is not excellent to another. The soulless coding exalted as the epitome of talent in China and India diverges from the romantic creativity of the West, which has produced invaluable art, philosophy, and architecture that cannot be so easily commoditized. Merit ought to be judged in respect to assimilability, not merely ambition. Even if foreign workers brought an unnoticed goldmine of talent Americans lacked, their infusion would still have a destabilizing effect on the nation already here, making strangers of neighbors. Nevertheless, if Trump genuinely believes—whether out of ignorance or conviction—that his duty lies equally with foreigners as with Americans, then he is no ally of the country or its people. "America First" does not mean markets or meritocracy first; it means the welfare of the American people must come first. Without an American people, there would be no country to speak of. Until Trump heeds the interests of these particular people, their concerns and dreams, he will remain a mere servant to the impersonal globalism he once ran against. For too long the voice of everyday Americans has been drowned out by a roaring symphony of special interests, and without Trump’s megaphone to amplify their concerns, they will remain unheard.