Tesla replaced laid off US workers with foreign workers using H-1B visas that Musk want to increase

[Mr. Sparkle]

Source: Electrek

Tesla has replaced some of its US employees who were let go as part of a big wave of layoffs earlier this year with foreign workers using H-1B visas, which CEO Elon Musk is now campaigning to increase. Over the last week, Elon Musk has been promoting the increase of H-1B visas, which are used to bring foreign workers into the US for “specialty occupations.”

Qualified foreign workers need to be sponsored by a company to get the visa, which lasts three years, extendable to six years, after which the holder needs to reapply. The visa holder must maintain employment at the visa sponsor to retain the work visa. The worker would have to leave the country if the employment ends for whatever reason. This has led to some criticism as it gives tremendous power to the employer and can lead to a modern version of indentured servitude.

While there are obvious benefits to bringing skilled workers into the US, people are divided on the issue because those workers are often paid less than US workers, putting negative pressure on compensation, especially in the tech industry, on top of the moral questions about holding visas over the heads of foreign workers. That’s why the US Congress has mandated a 65,000 visa cap limiting the number of H-1B visas that can be issued each fiscal year, plus an extra 20,000 for foreign people coming out of graduate programs at US universities.

Tesla has been a big user of those visas, and its CEO, Elon Musk, has been using his newfound political influence to promote increasing the cap of H-1B visas. He received significant pushback from his new friends on the right side of the political spectrum in the US, who see this visa as being used to steal jobs from Americans. He is quite passionate about the issue, to say the least:



Read more: https://electrek.co/2024/12/30/tesla-replaced-laid-off-us-workers-with-foreign-workers-using-h-1b-visas-that-musk-want-to-increase/

[NoMoreRepugs]

1. Eloon sure sounds like a tough guy - NOT. He's the photo on the poster for the Pasty Ass white boy club.

[Attilatheblond]

7. He sure doesn't like workers who have actual rights

Slaves/indentured servants is his bag

[Prof. Toru Tanaka]

20. Which is unsurprising since

he grew up in wealth and privilege during the age of apartheid in South Africa.

I read a book called “Kaffir Boy” by Johannes (Mark) Mathabane some years back. It was a searing expose by Mathabane about growing up as a black youth in a Johannesburg ghetto during the age of apartheid. I have that book to this day and it is a very good read that I would recommend to anyone.

[NotHardly]

29. Musk is a serious national security risk ... & we've just seen the start of it.

[NotHardly]

2. This prick needs to be gone.

[4catsmom]

17. Agree

he thinks he's a big man because he's standing on a tall pile of money

[sinkingfeeling]

3. Musk didn't come to the US on an H1B, he came on a student visa (F1).

And he didn't use the student visa. He broke federal law by lying to get that visa.

[Rebl2]

22. Should have

been deported years ago!

[Dave Bowman]

4. Someone has to be pathologically greedy to try something like this.

[Ziggysmom]

5. Bullshit. He fled South Africa to avoid mandatory military service!

He is a coward and stayed in the US illegally after he left college. But he vilifies immigrants today. What a hypocrite!

[Attilatheblond]

8. I keep reading he 'left college' after 2 days

Should have been deported immediately.

[Joinfortmill]

6. Some day I hope we can throw this racist out of our country.

[Oneear]

9. Guess this iswhy he wants to Build a Company Town for the Workers to Live in homes and buy from the company Store

He will own it end to end electric Water Waste Water Company Doctors Water Please

[Bengus81]

10. The hypocrisy of these NEO CON/NEO NAZI'S never ends. You MAGA fools that voted for this regime

better get your stupid ass's ready for what's coming. Oh wait...you thought it was all going to be roses because you voted for Trump? Hope the FIRST job lost from Eloon and his crack pot ideas is one of YOU assholes.

I swear,if they do HALF what they claim the unemployment rate will make the Saint Ronnie years look prosperous.

[roscoeroscoe]

11. Of course

Nothing is subtle or second level with these a-holes. They're out in the open with their greed.

[Justice matters.]

12. Oligarch One is right about one thing:

"the stupid morons" he brainwashes "cannot possibly comprehend" any rational thought (and the truth).

[Cheezoholic]

13. lol, now he's stealing rhetoric from his new buddy n/t

[LisaM]

14. I'm kind of with some rank and file MAGA on this one.

I am not a huge fan of these visas and how they are handed out to tech companies like candy (I believe that's how Kshama Sawant came over). In Washington State, they even enacted a law granting in-state tuition at public universities (mostly the University of Washington) to families of tech workers holding these visas, at a time when it was becoming increasingly difficult for in-state residents to get into Washington's public universities.

This is a giveaway to tech companies, nothing more. And it's also an example of our two-tiered immigration policy.

[Klarkashton]

23. Your concern isn't maga at all. Maga is all about

People from South of the border and people with black skin.

[travelingthrulife]

28. Don't forget hating women!

They are equal opportunity haters.

[JHB]

31. It's a labor issue (not that the MAGAts would frame it that way)

There are more stances on this issue than just MAGA bigots vs techbro H1b cheerleaders. Yes, we want a visa program for highly skilled individuals, but tech companies have been abusing the H1b program for decades, and thanks to money and lobbying to both parties, it's never been fixed.

Tech companies will make a fig leaf job listing for domestic engineers, usually with a provision that no applicant can meet and thus provides an excuse to deny any applicant, such as "must have 10 years experience" in a technology that didn't exist ten years ago. They can then tell the government "well, we couldn't fill the position domestically" and go for a visa hire.

A lot of those jobs aren't things that require such super-special knowledge that domestic engineers can't do it, but visa hires are cheaper and are more easily controlled thanks to the terms of the visa and their contracts.

Also, to the extent that domestic engineers don't know certain technologies, a good portion of that is because visa abuse has warped the job market to the extent that domestic engineers don't bother learning those technologies because it will be time, money, and effort wasted: no matter what they do, those jobs will go to visa hires, so they don't specialize in those things, artificially creating a knowledge gap for domestic engineers.

It wasn't watching Saved By The Bell that created the gap (as Vivek Ramaswami claimed a few days ago), it was the hiring practices of Elon and Vivek and many others.

It's a very legit stance to be in favor of the H1b program but want abuse of it substantially cleaned up and effective enforcement of its rules.

[2naSalit]

15. A taste of...

His own medicine would be really good for him and even better for us.

[Demobrat]

16. For every H1B worker there is an unemployed American

tech worker over 40. Okay, I made that up, but it sure is what it looks like out here in the Bay Area. I am on the side of the Americans on this one. They are not too dumb to hire, they are too old. At 35.

[SunSeeker]

26. Corporations use H-1B Visas as basically a scam to pay tech workers less.

Some Stats:

• 76% of H-1B Visa holders are from India
• 70% of H-1B Visas are for computer-related occupations
• $85k = median salary H-1B in computer occupations
• $132k = median salary of American in computer science

So, H-1B visa holders get paid 65% of Americans in computer science. H-1B is predominantly a source of cheap labor for the tech industry. It has been for years. https://ssti.org/blog/useful-stats-look-h-1b-visa-program-industry-employer-and-state
https://www.david-ware.com/blog/2017/04/which-country-are-most-h-1b-visa-holders-from/#:~:text=Individuals%20with%20India%20as%20their,up%201.3%20percent%20of%20beneficiaries.

Right now, the unemployment rate among American tech workers--even experienced ones--is 6%. That's 50% higher than the overall national unemployment rate of 4%. NO employer should be using the H-1B program for tech workers as long as tech worker unemployment is above 4%.

[harun]

32. this

[cstanleytech]

18. Companies shouldn't be allowed to hire such workers for up to 6 years after they have reduced their workforce.

[Demobrat]

19. They would just get around it by slightly rewriting the job description.

That’s how it’s done. Lay off the older, more highly paid worker, rewrite the job description, hire someone cheaper.

[AllaN01Bear]

21. id love this sucker deported .

[Klarkashton]

24. This is their dirty little secret. There is always a dirty little secret

[Xipe Totec]

25. Been there. On the receiving end. Not fun. nt

[AZLD4Candidate]

27. I have been screaming since I started my wife's green card process that the entire "legal" immigration process

and system needs to be overhauled from the bottom up because it is a soul destroying, costly, ineffective system rife with bureaucratic abuse and people who know how to game the system.

No, we should not get rid of work visas. Yes, the entire process, system, and idea has been corrupted. But what do you expect from a system that was written by two of the biggest racists in Congress during the height of McCarthyism whose sole purpose was to keep people out.

[mathematic]

30. This acticle is poor analysis that is uncritically repeating claims from a racist reddit forum.

Of course there's plenty of support for it here because I know how DUers really feel about immigrants.

Weeks ago, after the election, DU was blaming latin american immigrants that shifted to trump for "pulling up the ladder" behind them. And then this past week I see DU come to a great consensus on h1b immigrants that MAGA is right, and that immigrants actually are stealing our jobs.

Why do people seem to think that pulling up a ladder is wrong but never putting out a ladder is somehow right?

[SunSeeker]

33. Oh please. Nobody here thinks all immigrants are stealing our jobs. We're talking about H-1B visa holders.

Technically, they're not even supposed to be immigrants. H-1B holders are supposed to be here temporarily to do a job, then return to their home country.

The undocumented immigrants who toil in the fields and slaughterhouses and restaurants are not taking Americans' jobs. No American is willing to do those jobs. H-1B visa holders, on the other hand, are absolutely taking American jobs.

Some Stats:

• 76% of H-1B Visa holders are from India
• 70% of H-1B Visas are for computer-related occupations
• $85k = median salary H-1B in computer occupations
• $132k = median salary of American in computer science

So, H-1B visa holders get paid 65% of Americans in computer science. H-1B is predominantly a source of cheap labor for the tech industry. It has been for years. https://ssti.org/blog/useful-stats-look-h-1b-visa-program-industry-employer-and-state
https://www.david-ware.com/blog/2017/04/which-country-are-most-h-1b-visa-holders-from/#:~:text=Individuals%20with%20India%20as%20their,up%201.3%20percent%20of%20beneficiaries.

Right now, the unemployment rate among American tech workers--even experienced ones--is 6%. That's 50% higher than the overall national unemployment rate of 4%. NO employer should be using the H-1B program for tech workers as long as tech worker unemployment is above 4%.

Democrats don't like H-1B Visas because they are used as a scam by corporations to avoid paying Americans a fair wage. It is not a matter of refusing to "put out a ladder." Exploiting desperate tech workers from India to the detriment of American tech workers is hardly a "ladder" for anyone.

It is not just DUers; many on the left oppose H-1B Visas. Here's a particularly good takedown of Musk and H-1B Visas by Robert Reich: https://www.eurasiareview.com/30122024-robert-reich-why-musk-is-wrong-about-opening-america-to-skilled-workers-from-abroad-oped/

Please explain how Robert Reich is wrong.

[Demobrat]

34. So being anti slave labor is the same as being

anti-immigrant?

[Blue_Tires]

35. So much for "America First"...

Well done, Trump voters... Stand up and take a bow 😒