Honeymoon's Over

Is the MAGA-Musk alliance over before it really began?

Looks like the honeymoon’s over.

Certainly, at this stage, after events of the last few days on Twitter, you could be forgiven for thinking the marriage between MAGA and the Musk-ovites has come to a flaming end, with both parties citing irreconcilable differences. And how fitting that the end should come at Christmas, the season of perpetual hope and blazing booze-fuelled rows while the gravy boils over and the kids cower behind the sofa!

The big question now: Who gets the dogs and the beach house in Malibu?

But seriously. Trump isn’t even in power yet and the MAGA hats are calling the tech bros racist for wanting an immigration free-for-all and damn the American people; and the tech bros are calling the MAGA hats racist because they think a nation is something more than just an economic zone and some lines on a graph, and Americans shouldn’t have to hustle like Turd World sewer-divers and shoe-polishers to stay alive in their own country.

It’s a real bloody mess.

And like I say, Trump isn’t even in power yet.

In truth, though, there’s a case to be made that this is all for the good. The big blowup about H-1B visas and America’s need to monopolise the world’s “top-tier talent” has come at the right time and can be solved in a way that offers an honorable climbdown for both sides. Well, mostly the tech guys, actually.

It was a clash that was destined to happen, given the differences in background and assumptions on both sides—Big Tech is hardly a natural ally of Trumpian populism—but it’s better it happened now and not a few weeks or months down the line, when it could become really nasty and a huge distraction from ensuring the second Trump administration starts as it means to go on.

Thus far, president-elect Trump hasn’t commented on the spat, and JD Vance has done little more than retweet a video of himself saying that American workers need to be protected. It’s probably best it stays that way.

So for now, let’s call this a lovers’ tiff—that exhilarating first argument—rather than grounds for divorce. It could still become grounds if the matter isn’t handled well, but that’s far from inevitable, at least for now.

First things first: the H-1B visa system is a scam. That’s absolutely beyond doubt. Anybody who argues otherwise either doesn’t know a thing about the system or is being disingenuous. There exists a massive apparatus—corporations, subcontractors, recruiting firms, ethnic mafia patronage networks straddling oceans and continents—that exists for the sole purpose of undercutting American workers by importing foreigners, mostly from Asia, to do their jobs for less, via H-1B visas.

It’s about money. Of course it is.

A 2020 report by the Economy Policy Institute laid out the problems with the system in great detail. It noted how 60% of H-1B positions certified by the US Department of Labor were assigned wage levels far below the local median wage for the occupation. It also noted how, although over 50,000 firms rely on H-1B visas, just 30 firms accounted for 25% of all applications. These firms relied heavily on outsourcing companies that handled all the hiring and visa work themselves: the outsourcers exist for one purpose, to ensure a massive and constant flow of foreign workers into the US. The report also noted how major firms like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Walmart and Facebook all used the H-1B system to replace American workers and pay their replacements lower wages.

This year, a study published in the Journal of Business Ethics, using leaked company data, showed that top consultancy firm Deloitte pays its H-1Bs around 10% less than it pays their American counterparts. Big surprise.

But it’s not just “top employers” like Microsoft and Google and Deloitte that are using H-1Bs to maximise their profits. If you’ve been following the H-1B talk on Twitter over the last few days, you’ll also know it’s employers looking for mid-level accountants, gas-station attendants and even pickleball instructors and Chippendale strippers.

The H-1B isn’t a tool for ensuring America gets the “cream of the crop” from around the world, as its champions in the tech world want you to believe. It’s a one-size-fits-all ticket to a smaller wage bill, whether you want a sports instructor, a Javascript programmer or a man to dance around in a thong to “My Pony.”