On one side, the fiercely loyal supporters who love Donald Trump the most. On the other side, the fiercely loyal supporters who love Trump the most.
Yes, even before he has been sworn in for the second time, the world around Trump has been plunged into chaos by a bitter and at times pretty incomprehensible MAGA civil war.
Like all civil wars, the casus belli might seem obscure to outsiders. In this case, a group of people who had united on “build the wall” are split on whether to keep a legal immigration visa scheme called H1B which allows 65,000 new entries a year.
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Unlike a regular civil war, this one’s outcome will be decided by one person alone: Trump himself–making it a pitched battle like a scene in front of the emperor in Gladiator 2. Early on Tuesday one of the chief civil warriors, First Buddy Elon Musk, changed his X profile name to Kekius Maximus, apparently inspired by the similarity.
Ready for an epic battle? Here’s your indispensable guide to who’s fighting it out in the Circus MAGA-mus.
ON ONE SIDE: THE SILICON VALLEY SWORDSMEN
The Truthbomber: Vivek Ramaswamy
Ramaswamy is a former biotech CEO who ran against Trump in the Republican primary earlier this year. After dropping out of the race and endorsing the president-elect last January, Ramaswamy was named as one of two leaders of the “Department of Government Efficiency,” alongside Musk.
Ramaswamy sided with his DOGE counterpart last week, penning a long post on X bashing American culture for not producing enough engineers to staff American tech companies.
“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” he wrote.
The Lightning Rod: Sriram Krishnan
Krishnan, a veteran of several major tech companies including Microsoft and Facebook, is an outgoing partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz.
On Dec. 22, Trump posted a mundane announcement naming Krishnan as a senior policy adviser on AI.
“Sriram will focus on ensuring continued American leadership in A.I., and help shape and coordinate A.I. policy across Government,” Trump promised in an post on Truth Social, similar to the dozens he has posted since his victory in the presidential election in November.
A day after the announcement, Laura Loomer took to X to criticize Krishnan—over his thoughts on immigration, not his qualifications to advise the administration on AI.
Loomer pointed to a post Krishnan made after Musk was named as one of the heads of the “Department of Government Efficiency.” The A7Z partner offered his own advice for cutting government waste: “anything to remove country caps for green cards / unlock skilled immigration would be huge.”
Krishnan himself thanked Trump for the opportunity, but seems to have largely stayed away from the controversy since his nomination.
The Other Emperor: Elon Musk
Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, inserted himself into the debate shortly after Loomer began ranting about Krishnan.
“The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B,” Musk claimed in another post.
After making a Tropic Thunder reference—“Take a big step back and F*** YOURSELF in the face”—Musk said he would “go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.”
Musk seemed to soften his stance in another post on Saturday, admitting to the immigration hawks that the H1-B program was “broken and needs major reform.”
The billionaire claimed the visa program could be fixed by tweaking the minimum salary requirements to make it more expensive for companies to hire overseas workers over American citizens.
AND ON THE OTHER SIDE, THE OLD MAGA MOB
The Crazy Conspiracy Theorist: Laura Loomer
Laura Loomer is a right-wing provocateur and a longtime Trump loyalist who briefly ended up in the president-elect’s inner orbit on the 2024 campaign trail.
Loomer called Krishnan a “career leftist” and said his views on immigration were in “direct opposition to Trump’s America First agenda.”
Loomer’s rants against the visa program also veered into racist screeds, including one claiming “our country was built by white Europeans, actually. Not third world invaders from India.” Loomer was notably banned from rideshare apps Uber and Lyft after a rant about Muslim drivers in 2017, and was later booted from mobile payment apps like PayPal.
On Friday, Loomer was one of several MAGA influencers on X, the platform Musk purchased for $44 billion, who claimed they were demonetized or otherwise “censored” over their criticisms of H1-Bs.
“As one of Trump’s biggest supporters, I’m having my free speech silenced by a tech billionaire for simply questioning the tech oligarchy,” Loomer whined.
She also mocked Musk as a “welfare queen,” citing his companies’ status as recipients of hefty government contracts.
The Reparations-ist: Steve Bannon
The architect of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign has emerged as one of the chief critics of H1-B visas.
“I always give full respect to Elon. Elon was absolutely central,” Bannon said on his War Room podcast last weekend, praising his get-out-the-vote strategy. “He did write the check, and that gets him a seat at the table—I’ve said that from the beginning—although I fundamentally disagree with him on major issues.”
But by Monday, Bannon’s knives were out for the program and its backers, going as far to call for “reparations” for Americans who lost jobs foreign workers and calling Musk a “toddler” on right-wing Twitter clone Gettr.
“The workers that are here on H-1B visas should be deported at the same time we’re deporting the 15 million illegal aliens Biden brought across the border to suppress wages to low-income workers,” Bannon said in an episode of his podcast on Monday, escalating his rhetoric.
“American workers should be hired immediately to fill those gaps, and then we should start the discussions on reparations, on what they knowingly did to American tech workers.”
DECIDING THE WINNER: THE EMPEROR DONALD TRUMP
The president-elect has seemingly sided with Musk, Ramaswamy, and the other Silicon Valley supporters, so far, despite previously criticizing the H-1B program during his 2016 campaign and attempting to crack down on them during his first term in office.
“I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them,” Trump told the New York Post in an interview on Saturday. “I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program.”
So thumbs up or thumbs down? Like all sword-and-sandals epics this battle at Mar-a-Lago seems certain to run and run and run.
