Patricia Lopez, Columnist

H-1B Clash Exposes a Tough Choice for Trump: MAGA or Musk

The program needs an overhaul, but reforms may anger the president-elect’s new friends in Silicon Valley.

January 16, 2025 at 12:00 PM UTC

Patricia Lopez is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy. She is a former member of the editorial board at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where she also worked as a senior political editor and reporter.

A delicate dance.
Photographer: Brandon Bell/Getty Images

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The skilled worker visa program known as H-1B is heavily flawed — and has only grown more so since its inception in 1990. It has also cracked open a major schism in the MAGA movement, which has long been defined by President-elect Donald Trump’s opposition to immigration.

The split has revealed the fragility of Trump’s coalition, which now straddles anti-immigrant MAGA faithful and Silicon Valley tech globalists. Navigating this terrain will require a deftness seldom seen in his first term.