President-elect Donald Trump’s attempt to keep the Silicon Valley tech moguls in a coalition with his more rabid anti-immigrant supporters hit a snag this week after he named Indian-born venture capitalist Sriram Krishnan to a top artificial intelligence policy position in his upcoming administration. Far-right social media influencer and Trump ally Laura Loomer said Krishnan’s wish for more H-1B visas for "high-skilled" foreign workers is “in direct opposition” to Trump’s agenda.
Elon Musk, who once held an H‑1B visa, said it’s important to seek the best talent wherever it is. That’s a good argument.
Trump adviser and major campaign donor Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa and once held an H‑1B visa, said it’s important to seek the best talent wherever it is. That’s a good argument. But then his fellow DOGE co-chair, Vivek Ramaswamy, who was born in Ohio to Indian immigrants, chimed in to blame 1990s-era sitcom depictions of “cool” and “nerdy” kids for what he considers the country’s engineering shortage. We’d have more engineers, his argument goes, if America lauded the Screech character from “Saved by the Bell” rather than his pretty-boy prep and jock counterparts.
Speaking of the H-1B visa program during his 2016 campaign, Trump said, “We shouldn’t have it. Very, very bad for workers.” During his first term, Trump made it harder for foreign-born workers to enter the U.S., if he were planning on doing anything differently this time around, he wouldn’t have named Stephen Miller his deputy chief of staff for policy.
Loomer is correct to note that Trump choosing Krishnan as his senior policy adviser on artificial intelligence is odd, especially given Krishnan’s remark to Musk on X last month that “Anything to remove country caps for green cards / unlock skilled immigration would be huge.”
But I’ll take political incoherence over a total commitment to a bad idea. If Krishnan can convince Trump to be more open to foreign workers, that’s better for this country.
People from India account for about 75% of those who apply for H-1B visas. At less than 12%, people from China account for the second-most applications. (It’s worth noting that more than a third of the world’s population lives in either China or India, and that the population of each country exceeds that of the U.S. by more than a billion.)
The fact that 35% of people in the world live in either India or China — and that 95% live outside the U.S. — means there’s more talent outside this country than there is in it. It makes sense, then, for any company that expects to be competitive on the global stage, to seek out talent wherever it is, and it makes sense for our government to let them in.
“The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low,” Musk said in a Christmas Day post on X. “If you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be.” Saying that the U.S. talent pool is “too low” sounds like an unwarranted judgment. It suffices to say that the world has a deeper talent pool than any one country does.
The USA’s medal tally in this year’s Olympics in Paris makes that point. Even though no country won more golds, and even though the U.S. won 35 more than its closest competitor, China, did — other countries still won 88% of the golds and 88% of the total medals awarded.
Asking why a U.S. employer might award a job to someone outside the U.S. is the equivalent of being mad that somebody abroad is singularly fast or strong or graceful.
It suffices to say that the world has a deeper talent pool than any one country does.
However, instead of making the relatively safe argument that the world is overflowing with talent, the cocksure Ramaswamy, who vowed to “gut” the program when he was running for president, decided to attack U.S. culture.
In an X post, he argues that there isn’t “an innate American IQ deficit,” but referencing the mass pop culture of his 1990s youth, argued that “A culture that venerates Cory from ‘Boy Meets World’... or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in ‘Family Matters’ ... will not produce the best engineers.”
He added that he knew “*multiple* sets of immigrant parents in the 90s who actively limited how much their kids could watch those TV shows precisely because they promoted mediocrity … and their kids went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates.”
The logical fallacy is glaring. That some people who weren’t allowed to watch silly, broad sitcoms mainly directed at children became “wildly successful STEM graduates” doesn’t mean they succeeded because those shows were forbidden. But that’s hardly the biggest issue with Ramaswamy's argument. Why does he think character tropes in 30-year-old sitcoms have anything to do with the quality or quantity of our engineers? Why does he think a country’s culture should be measured by the quantity or quality of its engineers?
And, perhaps most importantly, why does he not know that, in the end, Steve Urkel embarked upon a successful STEM career — and won the beautiful Laura Winslow?! Did his parents ban the show? Wait, he’s including himself in the “wildly successful STEM graduates,” isn’t he?
This is a throwdown we should hope is won by those who support more H-1B visas — even those who are self-important and obnoxious.
In addition to being simplistic, Ramaswamy’s argument also had the effect of alienating the MAGA crowd he was working so hard to please as a presidential candidate.
“I always love when these tech bros flat out tell you that they have zero understanding of American culture and then have the gall to tell you that YOU are the problem with America,” Brenden Dilley, a pro-Trump podcaster, wrote on X. Steve Bannon, on his “War Room” podcast, called many of the pro-H-1B arguments a “total scam” and added, “If we are going to have a throwdown, let’s have it now.”
This is a throwdown we should hope is won by those who support more H-1B visas — even those who are self-important and obnoxious. America never has and never will become stronger or more competitive by starving itself of talent. And no mindless faith in American exceptionalism will make it true.