New York, Dec 30 (FN Bureau) A deepening rift within US President-elect Donald Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) circles has brought tech honcho Elon Musk under fire, as prominent conservative figures accuse the billionaire of silencing dissent on his social media platform, X. The accusations stem from disagreements over Musk’s strong support for H-1B visa programme, a stance that has sparked anger among staunch Trump loyalists.Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, headed by Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, has been outspoken in defending the H-1B visa programme. Musk has argued that legal immigration of highly skilled workers is essential for maintaining America’s global technological dominance. “If you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be,” Musk wrote on X, saying in another post on Thursday that “bringing in via legal immigration the top around 0.1 pc of engineering talent” is “essential for America to keep winning.”
However, this perspective has provoked sharp backlash from MAGA loyalists, including far-right activist Laura Loomer, conservative commentator Ann Coulter and former Congressman Matt Gaetz. These figures, critical of the H-1B programme, claim it undermines American workers and contradicts Trump’s “America First” agenda.Loomer, a far-right provocateur and ardent Trump supporter, on Thursday claimed that Musk had removed her verified status on X and shut down her ability to gather paying subscribers because of her opposition to the H-1B programme. Musk, she posted, “is a free speech fraud.” Preston Parra, chairman of the Conservative PAC, echoed her claims, stating that 53 accounts associated with his organisation had also been stripped of verification badges. “If anyone thinks for one minute the REAL backbone of the right wing and MAGA is gonna stand idly by, while these big tech gillionaire Silicon Valley dweebs who didn’t get bullied enough in high school, steal our country, they’re mistaken,” Parra said in a statement.Conservative PAC also posted on X: “We spoke out against HB1 visas and it appears that @elonmusk intentionally shut us down?”