This “war of words” represented “a first salvo in the long-term battle over the future of the MAGA movement,” said Flavio Hickel, professor of political science at Washington College.
On the front line of the Silicon Valley camp: Elon Musk, the richest man on the planet, who spent at least $250 million in the campaign for Donald Trump. The Republican rewarded him by appointing him to head a commission responsible for slashing public spending, alongside another billionaire, Vivek Ramaswamy.
The boss of SpaceX and Tesla, a naturalized American, took a position in favor of H1-B visas – widely used by Silicon Valley companies to employ foreign workers – arguing that “bringing the top 0 through legal immigration, 1% of engineering talent is essential” for the United States.
Nativism
For Flavio Hickel, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy and the other tech moguls who supported Donald Trump are “ideologically libertarian”, therefore opposing state interventionism and further favoring certain conservative tenants such as deficit reduction public and legal immigration.
The traditional “MAGAs”, for their part, “seem to not care about the budget”, adds the professor, and consider that Donald Trump’s nativism, that is to say his opposition to immigration, represents “the most important aspect attractive” of his presidential campaigns.
Elon Musk, who described his conservative detractors as “despicable buffoons”, promised to “go to war” on this visa issue and in return attracted the wrath of the opposing faction.
Steve Bannon, former adviser to Donald Trump at the White House, threatened on his podcast to “rip off the head” of the Tesla boss.
For this supporter of a hard line on immigration, Donald Trump’s billionaire supporters never really understood what made the New York tycoon so attractive to working-class voters, and these “recent converts” should ” stand back and study” the traditional “MAGA” position.
Steve Bannon also railed against Silicon Valley companies which, according to him, “eviscerated the middle class” in the United States, by letting foreigners fill certain positions.
Pragmatism
But in this trench war, Donald Trump chose his side – that of tech – by defending H1-B visas, and thus caused astonishment among some of his supporters.
For political scientist Donald Nieman, we must credit the president-elect for his ability to assemble a broader coalition than in the past, even if this makes conflicts more likely.
Giorgia Meloni on her way to visit Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago
“He knows that he must succeed on the economy – the subject that took him to the White House”, and there would therefore be no political interest in “shooting in the legs” of tech, says the professor at Binghamton University.
The “MAGA” movement may have permanently changed its face with this financial influx from Silicon Valley, and Donald Trump, who has demonstrated ideological pragmatism in the past, may choose to ignore the most right-wing fringe on thorny issues.
But for some, this rift which has opened between the two Trumpist factions will end badly for Elon Musk, because the future Republican president is aware that his real power has always resided in the support provided by the working classes.
