Christmas Conflict As Cracks Appear In The MAGA-Tech Alliance

Cracks Appear In The MAGA-Tech Alliance 

Elon Musk is arguably more responsible for Donald Trump's election victory than any single individual other than Trump or his opponent. By buying Twitter (now, X), he provided a platform for Trump and others to counter the mainstream media, and Elon of course endorsed Trump, donated millions to support his campaign, and personally stumped for him in Pennsylvania. 

As much as Trump supporters appreciated Elon and other Silicon Valley types like David Sacks helping getting Trump elected, many feared that the price would be more foreign workers for the tech industry. Those fears were validated on Christmas as Elon and others called for just that. 

The conflict was further fueled by the revelation that recent Trump appointee Sriram Krishnan wants to lift country caps on green cards...

How Many Indian Immigrants Does America Need? 

As a number of X users noted, in practice, lifting country caps would further increase Indian immigration at the expense of other countries.

Elon applauded as tech cram school founder Austin Allred, who had previously been fined for deceiving Americans desperate for Silicon Valley jobs...

...Mocked Trump supporters, suggesting they were against welcoming foreign geniuses like Wernher von Braun. 

But others pointed out that India hasn't produced many von Brauns--in fact, it has produced fewer hard science Nobel laureates than tiny Croatia, despite having 375x as many people. 

And we are importing 281x more H-1B tech workers from India than we are from Wernher von Braun's home country, Germany: 

Indians Chime In, Insult Americans

A number of Indians, both in India and the U.S. chimed in to insult American commenters, with one even suggesting Americans were "inbred"...

This, despite India's sky-high rates of cousin marriage. 

Other Indians and Indian-Americans argued that Americans were turning against "meritocracy" because they couldn't compete with Indians--this despite Indians (and Indian women in particular) benefiting from pro-DEI policies in the U.S. 

@dpinsen

 

♬ Frolic (Theme from "Curb Your Enthusiasm" TV Show) - Luciano Michelini

Vivek Drives Into The Peter Principle On X

Vivek Ramaswamy, President Trump's co-head, along with Elon Musk, of the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE), wrote that American culture was the problem. 

Vivek seems to have forgotten that he was appointed by an icon of American culture...

... And the folly of comparing American culture invidiously to Indian culture. 

Even Vivek's former Republican primary rival Nikki Haley dunked on him for that post. 

Are Indian Engineers Really Smarter Than American Ones? 

Why don't we test that and find out? 

A Common Sense Approach 

Most Americans would probably be fine with us taking in world-beating geniuses from India and every other country, but Elon Musk, David Sacks, Vivek Ramasamy and others should be sensitive to legitimate concerns and objections:

• We already have a visa category for world-beating geniuses, the O-1. It has no annual numerical or country caps. Americans are tired of the bait-and-switch, where we are told we should welcome geniuses but the tech industry is actually advocating importing more average workers to lower wages. 
• An objective test given in environments free of the rampant cheating that plagues India (such as the American consulates mentioned above) would go a long way to assuage concerns about credential fraud and ethnocentric hiring of immigrant tech workers.

  Sounds like Indians would too, if they couldn’t cheat. https://t.co/1pEdmBLHJ3

  — David Pinsen (@dpinsen) December 26, 2024

• Better to build goodwill first by deporting millions of illegal aliens and raising wages for American workers before expanding legal immigration. 

Let's wrap this up on a positive note by mentioning an excellent, Made In America tech product. 

Born In The USA

The original version of the Portfolio Armor iPhone app was built by a self-taught American software programmer based in Maine; the current version is supported by software developers based in Indiana.

If you want to add some downside protection ahead of the new year, you can download our iPhone hedging app by aiming your iPhone camera at the QR code below (or by tapping here, if you're reading this on your phone). 

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Thursday Evening Update: Elon Walks It Back

Elon "clarified" that he was only talking about top 0.01% engineers (which presumably would already qualify for the O-1 visa). One popular account wasn't buying the walk back though.

And Drukpa Kunley offered a suggestion for those concerned about mass Indian immigration.