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Amid Elon Musk's silence on Trump's H1B fee hike, his old X post surfaces: 'The reason I am...'
Elon Musk, once a vocal H-1B supporter, is silent on Trump’s new $100K visa fee. His past claim of holding an H1B is disputed.
Amid the row over President Donald Trump imposing a fee of $100,000 on H1B visas starting Sunday, September 21, the silence of Elon Musk has surprised many. The billionaire, once a staunch advocate of H-1B visas, has kept quiet on Trump's proclamation on Friday afternoon.
Once a staunch advocate of H1B visa, the Tesla CEO once suggested that he made it big in the US like many others on an H1B visa. However, the claim remains contested. Elon Musk, a South African who became a US citizen through the EB-5 investor program. entered the US with an F1 student visa.
While some accounts suggest he overstayed his student visa and later obtained US citizenship, others suggest he may have had a US visa.
Despite the vague status of public information on Musk's visa status, Trump's former "First Buddy" remained a staunch advocate of the H1B visa program. In fact, till the very end of his tenure in Trump's administration, Musk continued to clash with Republicans pushing for a tighter regime on the H1B visa program.
Amid his silence, an old but passionate X post by Musk on the H1B visa has resurfaced. In the post, Musk went so far as the say that the H-1B visa program "makes America strong" and he would "go to war" to keep it.
“The reason I’m in America, along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that make America strong, is because of H1B,” Musk had said in an X post from December 27, 2024.
"Take a big step back and F*** YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend," he added.
Also read: Trump rolls out $1mn ‘Gold Card’: Check visa plan eligibility and other key details
Elon Musk's Tesla Faces Lawsuit Over 'H-1B bias'
Just days before Trump announced his decision, Musk's company, Tesla, had been involved in a major row over workers on H-1B visa workers. Reuters reported that a lawsuit was filed against Tesla at the US District Court in the Northern District of California, alleging that the company has "H-1B bias," as per a report by Reuters.
The lawsuit alleges that Tesla was biased in its hiring, preferring foreign workers over workers with H-1B visas over hiring US citizens. The complainants in the case are a software engineer and an HR specialist, and both alleged that they were not hired as the company had a "H-1B only" mandate for the posts. They claimed it amounts to "wage theft."
The Associated Press reported that H-1B visas are quite popular among major tech companies, as they allow them to hire an employee on an H-1B visa at a much lower cost than what it would cost to hire one with American citizenship. Axios estimated that the impact on tech companies could be in excess of a billion.
