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Elon Musk endorses an appeal to hire more migrant workers to fill up the lapses in the tech industry left vacant by a “lazy’ and mediocre “America,” backing Vivek Ramaswamy’s claims. The tech mogul got on the bad side of his MAGA crowd this week with some questionable posts and endorsements seemingly calling for the introduction of more immigrants into the workforce for having better work ethics than American natives.
Vivek Ramaswamy, who Donald Trump nominated to lead the federal cost-cutting drive alongside Elon Musk once he came into power in a lengthy X post criticized Americans for “venerating mediocrity over excellence,” while defending the hiring of migrant workers. He began by acknowledging that big companies hire immigrant tech workers over Native Americans because of questionable American culture. He wrote,
“The reason top tech companies often higher foreign-born & first-generation engineers over ‘native’ Americans isn’t because of an inate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture.”
Elon and Vivek Ramaswamy Promote Hard Work Over Leisure
Vivek went on to explain that if the country intended to fix the problem, they had to first confront the truth, which he attempted to establish via the post. According to him, a country that glorifies a prom queen over “a math olympiad champ” and “a jock over the valedictorian” is incapable of producing the best, skillful engineers. To fix this “mediocrity” Vivek clamored for the country to encourage more activities and movies that promote intellectualism and hard work and less social activities. He wrote,
“More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less ‘chilling.’ More extracurriculars, less ‘hanging out at the mall.”
The entrepreneur-turned-politician blamed part of this questionable culture on the influence of certain movies consumed over the years. Vivek referenced some 90s movies like Boy Meets World, Saved by the Bell, and Family Matters questioning Americans’ tendency to celebrate the jock or popular kids in these films over the nerds or brainiacs. The politician explained that such a culture can not produce the best engineers. He also encouraged Americans to favor movies like Whiplash and “fewer re-runs of ‘Friends,'” for a more successful future.
Elon Musk and Vivek Face MAGA Uproar For Promoting Use of Migrant Workers
Vivek Ramaswamy suggested that families who raise their kids based on the “hard work” model over the “leisure” model end up achieving greater feats. He added that “normalcy doesn’t cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent.” His write-up, seemingly endorsing skilled immigration, sparked anger from most MAGA supporters who opposed the idea.
However, Elon endorsed the post on X, stirring the backlash his way. In a lengthy piece, Newsone writer Zack Linly bashed both Elon Musk and Vivek for defending the tech industry’s consistent hiring of migrant workers/engineers over American-born engineers. For him, that was simply a rosy way of saying “Americans are too dumb and lazy to gain significant employment in the tech world.”
Zack criticized the MAGA crowd as well for not doing enough to counter the bashful opinions of “a foreigner and a second-generation immigrant.” However, the tech mogul Elon Musk has since defended his take on the subject via X, clarifying that he was simply referring to bringing in only the top 0.1 percent of engineering talent via legal immigration to ensure America keeps winning.
