Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated that the United States had been a beneficiary of talent from India, but he also added that the H1-B visa program had been misused by firms.
In a podcast with Indian entrepreneur Nikhil Kamath on Sunday, Musk added that some companies had been utilizing the H-1B visa to employ foreign workers at a “fraction of the cost of an American citizen,” his firms recruit to make up for the “scarcity of talented people.”
U.S. President Donald Trump increased the H-1B visa fee to $100,000 in September, which disproportionately impacts Indian workers who comprise more than 70 percent of H-1B visa holders.
Last month, Trump seemed to take a softer position on H1-B visas, stating that, as he told Fox News in an interview last month that foreign workers were sometimes necessary because the United States did not have “certain talents.”
Musk reported that “I’m certainly not in the school of thought that we should shut down the H-1B program,” adding that it would be “very bad.”
Musk, whose relationship with the U.S. president appears to be on the mend, having soured in May at the time of Trump’s spending bill, also increased concerns over the U.S. administration’s tariff policy. After being a close ally of Trump, Musk claimed that he had advised the president against the tariff route but was unsuccessful.
He said, “I think generally free trade is better.” Musk stated that adding tariffs might create distortions in markets. If tariffs at an individual level, or within each state of U.S., would be disastrous for the economy, “then why do you want tariffs between countries?”
Reuters indicated that “the president has made it clear he loves tariffs,” the CEO of Tesla, who led the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency, which was recently dissolved after just eight months in its mandate.
However, Trump has imposed “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of countries, with some of them negotiating a deal with the U.S. to reduce tariffs.
Musk also gave his vision of the future in the podcast with Kamath that spans a broad array of subjects, predicting that the practice of working will be optional within less than 20 years, and the concept of money will have “disappear.”
Therefore, Musk replied that energy is the true currency. He further adds, “This is why I said bitcoin is based on energy. You can’t legislate energy.”
In the last two months, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have experienced a severe sell-off as investor sentiment turns negative towards digital assets.
