Trump honors Microsoft CEO after Vance Drops an H-1b Visa Hammer on the Company

By R Anil Kumar

President Donald Trump honoured billionaire tech leaders including SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella for their contributions to America, hours after Microsoft was targeted by the administration over foreign workers. Five of the six honourees are immigrants.

Washington/Bengaluru. President Donald Trump celebrated tech billionaires for their contributions to America on Thursday only hours after a company run by one of them, Microsoft, was accused by his vice president of abusing the visa system to bring in more foreign workers.

It so happens five of the six leaders he honoured are immigrants.

Before the ceremony that recognized Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Vice President JD Vance announced at a news conference that the tech company was being suspended from a program that allows companies to apply for green cards for skilled foreign workers with H-1B visas.

The crackdown on Microsoft revealed the tension between the companies that power US economic growth and the administration’s efforts to reduce immigration. Trump’s team insists it’s possible to spot the superstar immigrants who could lead groundbreaking companies and says hiring unexceptional foreigners has hurt US workers.

“Our message to Microsoft is: You’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers,” Vance told a news conference. He said the company had abused the visa system. “You cannot lay off American workers and then replace them with foreign indentured servants.”

Vance said Microsoft last year fired 6,000 US workers but also obtained 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards.

The Trump administration is suspending Microsoft from a green card program, alleging fraud

The Company based in Redmond, Washington, has 223,000 employees worldwide. It said in a statement that the majority of its H-1B visa applications last fiscal year were “to extend or change the status of existing Microsoft employees.”

In presenting the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Microsoft’s CEO, Trump took a more flattering approach and made no statements about the company’s hiring of foreign workers.

“For more than three decades, Satya Nadella has been a key figure in the transformation of Microsoft, revolutionizing the company and empowering businesses, students and consumers from all over the world with some of the most capable software ever built,” Trump said.

When Vance was asked about the seeming contradiction, he said, “We’re going to continue to support Microsoft and have a great relationship with Microsoft.”

Of the six tech leaders who received an award for scientific and technological achievement from the president, five came from abroad.

The president gave the National Medal of Science to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and Lisa Su, CEO of the semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices. Each of them was born overseas — South Africa for Musk, Russia for Brin and Taiwan for Huang and Su.

In addition to Nadella, Trump also gave the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell, who has sponsored the government’s special investment accounts for children known as Trump Accounts. Dell was born in Texas, while Nadella immigrated from India.

On social media, Nadella thanked Trump.

“I’m humbled to stand alongside so many giants of American innovation and looking forward for what we can continue to do together to advance technology and drive American prosperity,” he posted.

They’re praised as ‘national treasures’

Trump called the group of billionaires “national treasures,” comparing them to his uncle, John Trump, an electrical engineer and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who received the National Medal of Science in 1983.

“Such a big day in the world of science and the world of technology — this is the biggest day there is,” Trump said. “You’re going to go down in the annals of history as being great.”

The honors — part of a summit celebrating a new “golden age” of science — build on Trump’s already lavish praise toward the entrepreneurs for their work accelerating the development of artificial intelligence technology, which he refers to as super intelligence. He has increasingly counted on the technology to deliver on his economic agenda and pushed for the US to lead its development while resisting calls for guardrails that he worries will stifle growth.

“We have an extremely high IQ audience, for a change,” Trump joked to the event’s attendees.

Past winners of the National Medal of Science, which was established in 1959, have mainly been academics and research scientists rather than business leaders. The ceremony honoring the business leaders overlaps with the awarding this week, separately, of Nobel Prizes.

The tech leaders have been frequent visitors to the White House in recent weeks. Musk, Huang and Su sat at the head table with Trump at the lavish state dinner for China’s leader, Xi Jinping. Also attending were Brin, Nadella and Dell, who on Wednesday was in the Oval Office to talk about Trump Accounts.

Last week, Huang and Musk were among the tech leaders at the White House to sign a voluntary agreement on developing AI after recent models raised national security and safety concerns.

With November’s midterm elections less than a month away, Trump has also sought to drive home to voters how investment in AI data centers and related computer equipment has helped to boost a record-high stock market, swelling the net worth of wealthier Americans. But the message hasn’t always landed. Polls show bipartisan concerns about AI developing too quickly, and high costs for everyday items like gas and groceries are dampening the economic outlook for many Americans.

Vance also said that several universities including Stanford and MIT should be investigated for visa fraud. Huang and Brin have degrees from Stanford and Su has multiple degrees from MIT.

The White House praised the contributions of Thursday’s honourees.

“These recipients are helping ensure America keeps leading the world in innovation,” said Liz Huston, a White House spokesperson.

The TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IS SUSPENDING MICROSOFT FROM A GREEN CARD PROGRAM, ALLEGING FRAUD-JD VANCE

President Donald Trump’s administration announced Thursday it was suspending Microsoft and several other firms from a program allowing foreign workers to apply for green cards, as it also lashed out at universities that bring international students to the US on exchange programs.

The announcement by Vice President JD Vance marks the latest swing from the Trump administration at employers and universities that welcome foreign studentsand workers into the country.

Such programs have frequently been targeted by some Trump supporters who argue they undercut American students and workers. Supporters say they allow the US to attract the best talent from around the world and fill important hiring gaps.

Supporters of the Republican president have long argued that various programs like H-1B visas — which Vance accused Microsoft of abusing — essentially empower American companies to recruit foreign workers for jobs that end up undercutting Americans. In the wide-ranging announcement, Vance and other top administration officials also called out universities over their use of J-1 visas for international students and information technology outsourcing firms.

The announcement came hours before Trump awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, part of an event at which he granted some of the nation’s most prestigious science and technology awards to his tech billionaire allies.

Vance says US workers are replaced with ‘foreign indentured servants’

Vance said the program from which Microsoft is being suspended requires companies to advertise jobs in America before applying to the Department of Labour to show they need to give a foreign worker a green card because of a lack of American workers.

They’ll put an advertisement in a small-town newspaper. They’ll go out there and say that ‘We have advertised for a position with our company, and nobody is responding to it.’ And they will use that lack of response to then go and replace American workers with what is effectively foreign indentured servants,” Vance said. “There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has used this system more than Microsoft.”

Microsoft is No. 5 among US employers when it comes to using H-1B visas, according data from US Citizenship and Immigration Services. Amazon is No. 1.

Vance said Microsoft last year laid off 6,000 American workers but also obtained 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards.

“If you do the math, for every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants,” Vance said in a White House news conference announcing the decision. “Our message to Microsoft is: You’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers.”

Vance said H-1B workers are effectively foreign indentured servants because if they lose their jobs, they have to leave the country, and they earn less than Americans in the same position.

Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Washington, said of the approximately 6,000 H-1B visa applications it submitted in the last fiscal year, 80% were “to extend or change the status of existing Microsoft employees.”

“These were not to hire new people,” Microsoft said in a statement. “The remaining filings for new employees were for individuals already legally in the United States who decided to come work for us, and they equal only 1% of our US workforce. They are not new arrivals to our country.”

The company added that it only files H-1B petitions for “those who meet the rigorous standards of this visa category.”

H-1B program has been scrutinized

The H-1B program has long been a target of Trump supporters who say that the program undercuts American workers and is rife with abuse.

H-1B visas are meant for high-skilled jobs that are difficult to find American workers to fill. Technology companies are the biggest users, with nearly three-quarters of approvals going to workers from India.

Trump last year attempted to ratchet up the fee for H-1B work visas to $100,000, saying it would protect American workers from losing their jobs to lower-paid foreigners, but a federal judge struck that down in June.

The administration has since tried a different tack, announcing plans in August for a $103,265 fee. The proposed regulation described the new fee as a “dedicated revenue mechanism to help recover a portion of the federal government’s costs of administering the lawful immigration system.” The rule isn’t yet final and is expected to face a legal challenge, like the one before it.

Besides Microsoft, Vance said the government was similarly suspending Adobe and tech consulting firms Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini. The companies did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Trump also has targeted international students

The Vance announcement came a day after Trump’s administration launched another broadside against international students and their ability to work in the US

The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday proposed a $70,000 fee for international students seeking to work in the United States. The proposed rule would require schools to pay the fee for every student who participates in the Optional Practical Training program, which allows students to work in jobs related to their major during or after their time in school.

Vance also called out universities, suggesting that they were abusing a program to allow international students to come to the US These temporary visas, called J-1 visas, allow international visitors to temporarily come to the US for work and study exchange programs.

Vance singled out nine universities that he said merited further investigation for J-1 visa fraud, saying they used the program in greater proportions than their counterparts.

The universities were Harvard; Yale; Stanford; Brown; the University of Pittsburgh; the University of California, Davis; the California Institute of Technology; Arizona State; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Stanford said it would cooperate with the investigation, and UC Davis said it would work with the federal government to “confirm compliance.”

MIT, Brown and Pitt said they had received and were reviewing subpoenas from the government related to programs for foreign workers. Yale said it would review investigation documents once it had received them.

“Of note, each J-1 visa holder at MIT has been vetted and authorized to come here by the US government, and we take seriously our obligations to follow US law,” MIT spokesperson Kimberly Allen said in a written statement.