Maga v Musk: Trump camp divided in bitter fight over immigration policy
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Feud flared up when president-elect chose Sriram Krishnan, an Indian-born entrepreneur, as his AI adviser. Bitter in-fighting has broken out between tech billionaire Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s hardline Make America great again (Maga) base after the US president-elect chose an Indian-born entrepreneur to be his adviser on artificial intelligence.
The row has pitted Musk and his fellow entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy against die-hard supporters including the far-right activist Laura Loomer and Matt Gaetz, the former congress member and abortive nominee for attorney general. The spat threatens to open up a chasm among Trump’s supporters over immigration, a key issue in his election victory.
Presaging what has been called a “Maga civil war”, Musk went on the offensive after Loomer attacked the choice of Sriram Krishnan, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, as the nascent administration’s AI policy adviser as “deeply disturbing”.
Loomer, a renowned anti-immigration provocateur widely credited for persuading Trump to highlight false rumors about Haitian immigrants eating pets in last September’s presidential debate with Kamala Harris, criticised Krishnan on social media for supporting the extension of visas and green cards for skilled workers. She said it was in “direct opposition” to Trump’s agenda.
Her comments provoked a riposte from Musk, the Space X and Tesla billionaire who is Trump’s most influential supporter and himself an immigrant from South Africa. “There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent. It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley,” Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns, on Christmas day.
