CNN
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Donald Trump’s side with Elon Musk on visas for high-tech workers is the most significant example yet of the president-elect favoring powerful elements in his new MAGA coalition over the anti-immigrant DNA of his base that he embraced as he rose to power used twice.

The simmering holiday dispute over H-1B visas has exposed new cracks in Trump’s broader support base, reflecting the contradictions between his populist ideology and the self-interests of many key players in his new-look inner circle.

After remaining silent about the controversy for several days, the president-elect chimed in and made it clear that he supported Musk’s argument for flexibility in hiring in the tech industry.

“Musk, the world’s richest man, made his case about H1B in a series of candid posts,” he wrote to a critic on the platform he owns. “I will go to war over this matter that you absolutely cannot imagine.”

The visa issue erupted into a storm following comments from Vivek Ramaswamy, Musk’s co-chair of the Department of Government Efficiency, which Trump set up to reduce the size of federal operations. The former Republican presidential candidate criticized American culture, educational standards and children’s television, saying he has “worshipped mediocrity over excellence for far too long.” The comments came dangerously close to elite contempt for millions of Americans and their culture, which Republicans have long accused Democrats of promoting.

On the other side of the debate, Steve Bannon, who served in the first Trump administration, called H-1B visas a “scam” by Silicon Valley oligarchs on his “War Room” podcast to “to take over and take over American jobs.” which essentially becomes contract servants with lower wages.”

H-1B visas allow the brightest foreign workers, including many engineers and computer scientists, to live and work in the United States. Advocates say they are crucial to ensuring Silicon Valley innovation continues to lead the world. The issue has become broader than just an economic question: Because of artificial intelligence and new generation computing, the industry is now critical to U.S. defense and national security.

But some of Trump’s most vocal and committed MAGA supporters have called the visas inconsistent with the “America First” and anti-immigrant philosophy on which the president-elect has built his appeal. Some critics of the system also argue that by importing foreign workers, the U.S. government is blocking the path to advancement for American workers and college graduates, including minorities.

One case isn’t enough to judge whether Trump’s favoritism for the Tesla and SpaceX pioneer will set the tone for a presidency over which Musk already has significant influence. And Trump defies patterns by acting on gut instinct and keeping his opponents off balance. Therefore, it would be risky to view the H1-B visa issue as a broader metaphor for the government moving forward.

However, Musk’s ability to use Earlier this month, for example, Musk got ahead of Trump and used his platform to push a bipartisan funding bill through the House of Representatives, bringing the government dangerously close to a shutdown.

Its influence could have implications beyond immigration policy. Musk’s extensive dealings before the US government – in several areas of the space industry, electric vehicles and artificial intelligence – could quickly lead to several conflicts of interest. And he has enormous influence abroad — including in countries like China, where the hawkish views of some of Trump’s top Cabinet members also risk clashing with the tech mogul’s priorities.

An H-1B nonimmigrant visa allows American companies to temporarily employ foreign workers with specialized skills and advanced academic qualifications to remain globally competitive. Proponents say the system is not intended to replace American workers but to fill important skills gaps that the U.S. workforce cannot meet. The visas were often used by South Asian workers who grew up in India’s thriving high-tech industries to come to the United States and build a wealthy diaspora.

Taken alone, attempts to expand the H-1B visa program do not appear inconsistent with Trump’s tough immigration policies and his promise to begin mass deportations of undocumented immigrants soon after he is sworn in next month.

But nearly two decades of bipartisan attempts to overhaul and consolidate the H-1B program have largely failed, often because sweeping immigration reform plans foundered on the polarization of immigration policy that Trump used in 2016 and again in 2024 to fuel his rise to power.

Trump has now made it clear that he agrees with Musk and has said he has sometimes used it H-1B visas at his companies, although he more frequently employs part-time foreign workers on H-2B visas at his golf resorts and hotels.

“I’ve always liked the visas, I’ve always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them,” Trump told the New York Post on Saturday about the H-1B system.

Musk pleaded in one of his less explosive posts: “Each of these people is an asset to the country. But the massive illegal immigration of people we don’t know about is crazy.”

Supporters of the South African-born immigrant argue that his success in disrupting and reinventing industries like space exploration and low-carbon transportation means he is exactly the kind of person who should be at the center of government and driving innovation in Washington.

But the tech mogul also has a clear vested interest in staying close to the next president, given his billion-dollar contracts with the U.S. government. And his new position at DOGE reportedly gives him the ability to remove regulations that limit his own ventures.

Musk’s zeal for defending H-1B visas appears to be a signal that he will not shy away from aggressively pushing his agenda if Trump is president. The decision rests with the president-elect how he reacts.

Liberal social media pundits were happy to highlight a “civil war” in the MAGA movement. But it’s not necessarily new for a president to head the warring parties in his coalition.

Trump, for example, often seems to provoke conflict among his advisors. And even President Joe Biden had to contend with the contrast between the progressive and more moderate wings of the Democratic Party early in his term.

In the coming weeks, Trump’s ability to balance the diverging interests between conservative budget hawks, hardline MAGA lawmakers and comparatively moderate lawmakers who could be vulnerable in the 2026 general election will determine the fate of his aggressive legislative plans on immigration, budget cuts and tax cuts .

But there is no modern precedent for a faction of a president’s power base to be led by someone as rich, capricious and powerful as Musk and with immediate access to a powerful social media network. Republican lawmakers, for example, talked before Christmas about how the phones in their offices suddenly lit up when Musk called for the elimination of House Speaker Mike Johnson’s original year-end budget proposal.

And the Tesla boss’s advocacy for the West Coast’s lucrative high-tech industry appears a world away from the economic concerns voiced by Trump’s core supporters and the low-stakes voters in the suburbs that are pushing him back into the fold White House paved.

The president-elect ran on lowering egg and bacon prices after a punishing bout of inflation — yet he has largely opted for a Cabinet of billionaires and millionaires who haven’t had to worry about such matters in years. If Trump’s Cabinet secretaries are as zealous as Musk in pursuing their personal goals, his administration’s policies could appear inconsistent and out of touch.

The uproar over tech visas also reignited one of the most intriguing questions of the transition. How long will Trump tolerate Musk’s ability to dominate the political debate in a way that only he can? Skeptics are convinced that the president-elect will soon tire of Musk’s ubiquity. Democrats have already tried to destroy their relationship by referring to “President Musk.” And the lesson of Trump’s first term is that those who overshadow him will soon leave his sphere of influence or become scapegoats when things go wrong.

This is how things may turn out. But both Trump and Musk have strong incentives to stick together. Musk will never be able to assume the role within government that he can use to advance his interests. And Republicans will be banking on the SpaceX chief’s financial might as the midterm elections approach, after he poured tens of millions of dollars into Trump’s 2024 campaign.

But a deeper reality could delay a possible split between Trump and Musk. Each has the ability to destroy the other. The president-elect will soon be able to use the federal government as an instrument of revenge. But someone as savvy with social media as Trump and who has turned falsehoods into reality that millions of Americans have embraced would certainly shy away from making an enemy of the man who controls X.