Should US Scrap H-1B Visa Programme? What Elon Musk Said

Elon Musk said that America has benefitted immensely from talented Indians. The multi-billionaire, who appeared on the latest episode of Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath's "People by WTF" podcast today, also explained that some of America's so-called anti-immigration policies were triggered by the "misuse" of H-1B visa programme and the previous government's "free-for-all" approach.

His remarks come even as for thousands of Indians, the American dream of world-class education, lucrative careers, better quality of life and social mobility is turning sour due to rising US visa restrictions and policy unpredictability.

Talking about the perception of some Americans that somehow their jobs are being taken away by people from other countries, he said, "I don't know how real that is. My direct observation is that there's always a scarcity of talented people. So you know, from my standpoint, I'm like we have a lot of difficulty finding enough talented people to get these difficult tasks done and so more talented people would be good."

Musk, who owns Tesla, SpaceX, X and XAI, also said that at his companies, the focus is on trying "to get the most talented people in the world".

"Some Companies Gamed The System On H-1B"

The tech mogul also spoke about "some misuse of the H-1B visa". He, however, doesn't think the programme should be shut down.

"I think there's been some misuse of the, you know, H-1B programme. It would be accurate to say that there's, you know, like some of the outsourcing companies have kind of gamed the system on the H-1B front, and we need to stop the gaming of the system. But I'm certainly not in the school of thought that we should shut down the H1B programme."

"I think they don't realise that would actually be very bad," he said.

For decades, the H-1B visa has been a chance for young engineers and scientists from India, China and other countries to turn years of study into high-paying jobs and the possibility of permanent residency.

But in September, US President Trump said new H-1B visa applications would cost $100,000 (Rs 89,47,000), up from the roughly $2,000 to $5,000 employers were paying to sponsor workers. The move followed his supporters asking for a crackdown on H-1B visas, citing widespread abuse and fraud in the programme amid allegations that H-1B visa holders are rendering Americans unemployed.

However, recently, Trump said that he would "welcome" skilled immigrants into the country who will "teach" American workers to develop complex products like chips and missiles.

Trump has said that a company cannot open up a big computer chip plant "with people that don't even know what a chip looks like." He had defended the H-1B visa programme, saying America has to bring in talent from around the world as it does not have "certain talents" in the country.

India was by far the largest beneficiary of H-1B visas last year, accounting for 71 per cent of approved beneficiaries, while China was a distant second at 11.7 per cent, according to the US government data.

The H-1B visa, typically issued for three years and renewable for another three, has enabled US tech firms to hire millions of skilled foreign workers to fill talent gaps.

In the podcast, Musk also explained why it was important to have border controls. "Under the Biden administration, it was basically a total free-for-all with no border controls. You know, unless you've got border controls, you're not a country. So, you had massive amounts of illegal immigration under Biden. It actually had somewhat of a negative selection effect. So if there's a massive financial incentive to come to the US illegally and get all these government benefits, then you are going to necessarily create a diffusion gradient for people to come to the US. It's an incentive structure. And that obviously made no sense. Like, you got to have border controls. It's kind of ridiculous not to."