CEO Elon Musk said that the U.S. has been a beneficiary of talent from India, while adding that the H1-B visa program had been misused by companies.
In a podcast with Indian entrepreneur Nikhil Kamath aired Sunday, Musk said that while some companies had been using the H-1B visa to hire foreign employees 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 in September raised the H-1B visa fees to $100,000, disproportionately affecting Indians workers that make up more than 70% of H-1B visa holders. Trump last month appeared to soften his stance on H1-B visas, saying in an interview to Fox News that foreign labor was needed at times because U.S. did not have “certain talents.”
“I’m certainly not in the school of thought that we should shut down the H-1B program,” Musk said, 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 over Trump’s spending bill, also raised concerns over the U.S. administration’s tariff policy. Once a close aid of Trump, Musk said he tried to dissuade the president from taking the tariff route, but was unsuccessful.
