President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday weighed in on H-1B visas, siding with Elon Musk in a row among conservatives over the program that allows highly-skilled foreigners to work temporarily in the United States. But this controversy revives concerns about Trump’s way of governing as seen in an article by The Washington Post, which quotes his statement to the New York Post.

“I’ve always liked visas, I’ve always been in favor of visas,” Trump told the Post in a phone interview. And he added: “I have a lot of H-1B visas in my properties. I have believed in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program.”

The comments come amid an online feud that has highlighted a rift in Trump’s coalition ahead of his inauguration in January. Musk and other business leaders see the visa program as essential to the U.S. tech industry, but anti-immigrant hardliners such as right-wing activist Laura Loomer and former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon, they argue that the system allows companies to exploit cheap foreign labor at the expense of Americans.

While Trump has said he employs H-1B workers, earlier reports indicated he employs workers under the H-2A program, which covers temporary visas for agricultural workers, and the H-2B program, for seasonal workers in fields such as tourism, hospitality and technical work in the real estate market. The Trump transition team did not respond to WP’s request for comment.

“The president’s statement that he supports immigration and visas for high-skilled workers allows Silicon Valley tech workers and the companies that employ them to breathe a sigh of relief after several tumultuous months,” Alcorn said.

Trump’s latest remarks mark an early victory for tech and business leaders who have aligned themselves with him in an effort to influence his administration. However, experts commented that she is unlikely to be the last word on the matter from the president-elect.

Trump’s stance on H-1B visas has changed several times over the years, belying his claim that he has “always been in favor” of them. In a March 2016 statement, for example, he promised to “end forever the use of H-1B as a cheap labor program and establish an absolute requirement that hiring American workers first for each visa and immigration program’.

In fact, the H-1B program continued under his first administration, although he scrutinized H-1B applications as part of an approach he called “extreme control”, making the process more burdensome for workers and employers. In the final year of his first term, Trump issued an executive order in 2020 that temporarily blocked new visas, including H-1Bs.

“In his first term, Trump “chased” H-1B”, said Muzafer Chisti, a senior fellow at the Immigration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. But Trump’s most recent presidential campaign focused on curbing illegal immigration. That stance could benefit Musk and other tech leaders, whose businesses rely on software developers and other skilled workers who come to the country legally on H-1B visas.

Amazon was the top taker of the H-1B visa program in 2024 with 9,265, according to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services website, with fellow tech giants Google, Meta, Apple and IBM ranking among the top 10. Musk , who was born in South Africa, noted that he once held an H-1B visa before becoming a US citizen.

Although only Congress has the power to end the program, the president can change how it is implemented, Chisti explained. One idea being considered is to award the visas to the highest-paid workers, rather than by lottery — a change that would likely benefit big tech companies.

But Trump’s comments on Saturday, in which he appeared to conflate H-1B visas with the H-2B program, suggest he lacks a solid understanding of the specialized issues of a
of politics, Chisti added.

“That he says something in the New York Post it doesn’t make it real in the world of migration’ he pointed out.

Immigration issues have led to a split among Trump advisers, some of whom believe that supporting legal immigration is the key to boosting support to crack down on illegal immigration, while a more fervent nationalist group that includes Bannon seeks to make immigration of all kinds more difficult.

Earlier on Saturday, Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, attacked Musk for his support for the program in a post on the social network Gettr, calling him “infant” which is needed “wellness check” from Child Protection Services. He was responding to a post by Musk on X in which the mogul attacked H-1B opponents and threatened to “going to war over this issue.”

“Trump’s White House it is in danger of turning into a pit of snakes where different factions in Trump’s ‘world’ compete for his attention,” commented Tom Warrick, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who worked at the Department of Homeland Security under Trump and under Barack Obama. “A lot of people during (his) first administration were afraid that whoever Trump talked to last before making a decision, that’s what (the last person told him) he would do. I can say firsthand that this is indeed the case.”