Trump Sides With Musk in Rift Among Allies

President-elect Trump appears to have picked a side in a fierce debate unfolding among his most prominent allies, and it's the side with Elon Musk. In an interview with the New York Post, Trump voiced support for H-1B visas, used by many Silicon Valley companies to bring in skilled tech workers.

• "I've always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas," Trump said. "I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I've been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It's a great program."
• However: Both the New York Times and the Washington Post note that Trump's companies have mostly used different visas—H-2Bs for seasonal workers in areas such as tourism and hospitality, and H-2As for agricultural workers. Trump also has previously criticized H-1B visas, including in 2016 when he called them "very bad for workers." Still, his new statement of support "allows tech workers in Silicon Valley and the companies that employ them to breathe a huge sigh of relief in what has been a tumultuous several months," attorney Stephanie Alcorn, a specialist in the issue, tells the Post.

• The fight: Over the last few days in particular, Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been among those strongly backing the visas as vital to the tech industry. On the other side are big MAGA names such as Laura Loomer and Steve Bannon, who want the visa program scrapped as part of a push against immigration, reports CNN.
• Musk escalates: The billionaire, a naturalized US citizen, has been aggressively tweeting about the visas. "The reason I'm in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B," he wrote, vowing to "go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend." (That response to a critic included a colorful and anatomically challenging insult borrowed from the movie Tropic Thunder.)
• Bannon returns fire: On his podcast Saturday, Bannon called Musk a "toddler" and welcomed the fight. He said the visas hurt American workers by driving down wages and only helped billionaires. "This is war," Bannon said, per the Times. "I'm glad we're having this debate now before Trump takes office." Loomer has told the newspaper the visas are a threat to national security.

(More President-elect Trump stories.)