Trump and Republican politics are beginning to dominate our digital spaces. This hasn’t happened by accident but is the result of a corrupt bargain with the tech industry. Elon Musk invested $277 million backing Trump and other Republicans this cycle, and it paid off for him and other Big Tech-billionaires that followed suit. Trump has adamantly defended the profitable and controversial H-1B guest visa program, even suggesting the extension of permanent residency to all foreign graduates of U.S. colleges. While Trump disciples have denounced guest worker visa programs, news of Trump’s pivot has his billionaire benefactors seeing dollar-signs.
Companies and executives have vocally and financially supported Democrats in past election cycles. Trump blamed Meta and Twitter for not covering “real facts and figures of the 2020 election,” and tried to strip platforms of their Section 230 protections from content liability in his first term. He levied accusations of bias and censorship of conservative users, and following his alleged incitement of the Jan. 6 riot, Trump was banned on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This context makes the wedding of Big Tech and the Republican party an unlikely marriage; it comes as quite the surprise that Trump would sell-out the cornerstone of his political brand for their blessing if the incentives weren’t so clear.
Trump and Big Tech have made up because the industry bankrolled Trump’s campaign. While Musk has been among the more generous and vocal of the tech barons supporting Trump, he isn’t alone. Musk is among the chorus of tech elites who’ve appeared on the “Joe Rogan Experience” to sing Trump’s praises. The list includes Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, cCo-founder of PayPal and defense-tech firm Palantir, and venture capitalist Marc Andressen. In addition to their podcast appearances, the men have recently given millions to Republican candidates and associated PACs, while Amazon and Google quietly joined Meta in making a million dollar donation to Trump’s inauguration fund. Publicly united in their support for Republicans, tTech is truly brought together in their quest to make federal policy continue to subsidize their wealth by persuading Trump to change his prior stance around immigration.
Trump built his political brand on opposing immigration and accusing undocumented immigrants of “taking your jobs.” He didn’t limit his criticism to just illegal immigration , but extended it to the H-1B and H-2B guest visa programs, which allow companies to hire and sponsor residency for specialized foreign workers. In a 2016 primary debate, he lambasted the prevalence of legal, “skilled” immigration through these visa programs, proclaiming, “it’s something that I frankly use and I shouldn’t be allowed to use it. We shouldn’t have it. Very, very bad for workers.” Trump makes clear his belief that companies, including his own, use the program to hire cheaper, foreign labor at the expense of looked-over American workers. Though his comments often lack a coherent philosophy and the nuance of an economist, retro Trump’s concern for workers under these programs isn’t baseless.
In both the immigration of undocumented “unskilled” workers and of “skilled” H-1B workers, an influx of labor in a particular sector can have a “loosening” effect on the labor market. More workers vying for the same job gives employers leverage to depress wages, leading to a higher profit margin. Trump’s rhetoric has always sympathized with the plight of working Americans, who’ve seen stagnant wages as corporate profits and immigration rates have exploded. However, receiving millions from the tech industry before and after the 2024 election has him singing a different tune.
The tech industry dominates hiring of H-1B guest workers, employing nearly half of all visa holders in 2023. The industry requires educated workers with degrees in software engineering, data analysis, and other digital skills. Companies get away with paying guest workers less than domestic hires, making the H-1B program a profitable asset to tech companies. On the All-In podcast, hosted by Silicon Valley billionaires, Trump went beyond simply defending the H-1B program, but expressed his will to fast-track permanent residency for international students graduating from American uUniversities, saying “you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country.”
Indiana University-Bloomington is among the top institutions attracting these potential new immigrants, hosting over 4,000 international students. If implemented, Trump’s plan would have these 4,000 graduates competing with American graduates in the job market. Here, Trump indicates to the tech industry his full support for importing skilled foreign labor, a flip that’s garnered flak from staunch Trump supporters like Steve Bannon.
Trump has generated backlash because he betrayed his own base. This new pro-guest worker stance is a handout to his Big Tech donors that is incompatible with his claimed ideology. Amazon, Google, Meta, Apple, and Tesla are all in the top 25 companies employing the most H-1B laborers. If a company like Tesla can replace part of its workforce with underpaid guest workers, Big Tech is ensuring the federal government maintains or expands the profitable program, regardless of its effect on the domestic workforce. Trump has shown that the populist, America-first, MAGA movement is on sale if you can spare a few million dollars for a bribe.
Eivin Sandstrom (he/him) is a senior studying Political Science and Spanish
