Trump himself has vacillated between siding with the populist and nationalist conservatives who have been his enduring supporters, many of them seeking a new blue-collar GOP, and businesses claiming to be starved for labor. Trump’s background is in real estate and entertainment.

Musk and Ramaswamy are wealthy tech entrepreneurs. The former was one of Trump’s biggest 2024 campaign donors, helped steer the ground game that helped the incoming president sweep the seven battleground states against a more experienced Democratic field operation, and more indirectly boosted Trump by purchasing X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. Ramaswamy became a top Trump surrogate after his own unsuccessful run for the Republican presidential nomination. Their social media posts in favor of the H-1B visa program sparked the first big intra-MAGA spats of the second term.

Over the summer, Trump sought to reassure tech investors in search of foreign labor that he favored the importation of foreign college graduates. 

“Can you please promise us you will give us more ability to import the best and brightest around the world to America?” Jason Calacanis asked Trump in the All-In podcast hosted by Silicon Valley tech investors.

WHAT TRUMP HAS PROMISED TO DO ON DAY 1 IN THE OVAL OFFICE

“I do promise,” Trump replied. “But I happen to agree. Otherwise, I wouldn’t promise. … You graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country, and that includes junior colleges, too.”

Even coming from Trump himself, this was viewed in some quarters as a betrayal of MAGA. It also came as college campuses had recently been rocked by pro-Hamas protests. The controversy largely disappeared after Trump picked Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, a populist, as his running mate.

Back in March 2016, Trump pledged to “end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program.” His campaign had put out a policy paper the previous year contending as much as “two-thirds of entry-level hiring for IT jobs is accomplished through the H-1B program,” lamenting “the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program.”

In an October 2015 Republican presidential debate, however, Trump refused to defend that white paper’s criticism of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) as “Mark Zuckerberg’s personal senator” for supporting H-1B visas. “I was not at all critical of him. I was not at all,” Trump said.

“I am all in favor of keeping these talented people here so they can go to work in Silicon Valley,” Trump insisted. 

During Trump’s first term, the Justice Department warned employers against “misusing the H-1B visa process to discriminate against U.S. workers.” The Department of Homeland Security also pledged to step up worksite visits to “determine whether H-1B dependent employers are evading their obligation to make a good faith effort to recruit U.S. workers.”

Curtailing illegal immigration and restricting travel from a handful of Muslim-majority countries were the top issues distinguishing Trump from his Republican primary opponents. These also became top campaign promises in three general elections where he was the GOP presidential nominee.

After winning a second nonconsecutive term in November, Trump put Musk and Ramaswamy in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency, with an eye toward slimming down the federal bureaucracy and cutting spending. This portfolio is far removed from immigration or the businesses in which the two men amassed their personal fortunes. 

But that didn’t stop them from speaking out about H-1B visas or more broadly criticizing American cultural and educational practices they view as contributing to the need for foreign tech workers. 

“More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of ‘Friends.’ More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers,” Ramaswamy wrote on X. “More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less ‘chillin.’ More extracurriculars, less ‘hanging out at the mall.’”

“This is the right position for those who want America to win,” Musk wrote in response to an X user quoting him as supporting increased skilled legal immigration while stopping illegal immigration. “For those who want America to lose for their own personal gain, I have no respect. Zero.”

Trump was elected with significantly more Hispanic and Silicon Valley support the second time around. He has not strayed much from his immigration message since beating Vice President Kamala Harris, but he has met with tech executives, including Zuckerberg, nominated Rubio for secretary of state, and softened his position on TikTok.

“It’s not helpful to President Trump for anyone in his administration to be pouring gasoline on hot-button issues that divide his coalition,” a Trump World source told the New York Post in response to the Musk-Ramaswamy visas flap. “Smart politics is focusing on issues that unite your supporters and divide your opponents.”

Trump, in his first term, endorsed the RAISE Act, which would have replaced some family-based chain migration with skills-based immigration.