Trump, who has remained silent thus far on the schism, faces a quickly deepening conflict between his richest and most powerful advisors on one hand, and the people who swept him to office on the other.

All this is stupid. But I know one thing:

Trump is a billionaire.

And I predict his followers are going to learn who he’ll side with when push comes to shove.

Also, Bannon’s take is interesting:

Bannon tells Axios he helped kick off the debate with a now-viral Gettr post earlier this month calling out a lack of support for the Black and Hispanic communities in Big Tech.

  • m-p{3}
    link
    fedilink
    1193 days ago

    H-1B is basically cheap corporate servitude, no wonder Musk likes it.

    • @brucethemooseOP
      link
      87
      edit-2
      3 days ago

      “Do as you’re told, or you’re deported.” Nope, no potential for corporate abuse there.

      • @someguy3
        link
        443 days ago

        Can’t forget “Burn through employees, and then deport them.” Use and discard.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          93 days ago

          Gotta keep up the churn so the wages you’ve depressed with imported servants let you hire back for cheaper.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        253 days ago

        I worked with a guy for 3 years (who had been there years before me) who then was told something was messed up on his paperwork and to continue a path to citizenship he had to leave the country for 6+ months and start the process over.

        He has to sell his house and car and move everything into a storage unit and take his kid out of school all inside of 30 days and then leave.

        He’s back now and a citizen, but what a mess.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          13
          edit-2
          3 days ago

          Yeah the h1b program is great in theory - if someone on another side of the border has learned a tech skill I say let em compete.

          The problem is that employers know that if they sponsor a visa they basically own that person. If they fire them it’s 60 days before they have to have sold everything and be gone or they risk a 3 year ban for unlawful presence. They can technically find another sponsor in that time but good fucking luck.

          It’s almost comically created to give employers a nice exploitable workforce instead of putting them on par with other employees. They can pay shit and put huge workloads on them and it’s “suck it up or we’ll replace you with the one of the 10,000 people we turned down for the visa.”

          I’ll compete with other skilled workers for a job but if you put a big “you can abuse this one tho cuz he probs brown” sticker on the foreign workers I get upset.

          • @CharlesDarwin
            link
            English
            73 days ago

            I think it’s mostly built around trumped-up nonsense from corporations. It’s about controlling what might be an unruly set of people - engineers starting to demand better pay and hours and having too much autonomy. Many of those visas go to software engineers. I don’t buy for a second that companies cannot source those skills locally.

            In the rare case where that is actually true - I say put together a program in which companies can seek and hire foreign talent, but they are given citizenship status, with no strings attached to any company.

            Indentured servitude should not be a thing, but this is what regulatory capture gets us, I guess. Companies whine they cannot find anyone (for the right price and willing to put up with all their toxic bullshit, they mean) so the corrupt government sets up a system to exploit foreign labor AND native labor.

    • @foggy
      link
      83 days ago

      Musk might be rich, but he doesn’t have a fucking military. And he’s not “Have a Military” rich. Not one that can stand to the US military, anyways.

      What a dunce.

      • rigatti
        link
        English
        233 days ago

        To be fair, he is not saying “war” like “send a military to kill people”.

        It’s a metaphorical war. He’ll probably throw a fit and tell people to do a bunch of shitty stuff, fund terrible things, etc…

        • Ragdoll X
          link
          143 days ago

          He might even pen some irritated tweets!

          • @qarbone
            link
            English
            73 days ago

            Babes, don’t even doubt he’ll pen some irritated tweets.

            Billionaires will cease to exist before Musk refuses to tweet something stupid.

        • capital
          link
          63 days ago

          Maybe he should consider toning I down after the healthcare ceo thing?

          Meh. Actually, keep it up.

        • @thesohoriots
          link
          English
          63 days ago

          Hard to fight either from a k-hole.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    66
    edit-2
    3 days ago

    No one believes he is standing up against racism while he is vocally and financially supporting the neo-Nazis AfD in Germany and Nigel Farage’s racist far right in the UK, and working for and funding lifelong racist Donald Trump. Elon Musk’s companies also have a known history of institutionalized racism. What he is taking a stand for is the ability to exploit and abuse cheap foreign employees by threatening them with deportation if they get out of line.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      233 days ago

      I’ve tried to eschew phrasing like “No one believes” or “Everyone knows” because a whole lot of asshats live in a fantastical world completely divorced from reality.

  • @RizzRustbolt
    link
    42 days ago

    Also Musk: “I fully support the German racists seeking to end immigration!”

  • @Boddhisatva
    link
    52
    edit-2
    3 days ago

    On Friday afternoon, Musk doubled down, saying MAGA adherents who continued to blast immigration and the tech community were “contemptible fools,” later clarifying he was talking about “racists” who would “absolutely be the downfall of the Republican Party if they are not removed.”

    Okay first, “contemptable fools” sure sounds like it could be replaced with “basket of deplorables” to me.

    Second, did he really just notice that MAGA/Republican party is made up of racists? I thought this guy was supposed to be smart.

    • @someguy3
      link
      33
      edit-2
      3 days ago

      I think there’s no way Musk isn’t a racist, he just kinda hides it from public view. He thinks he can shame others to do what he wants by calling them racist (remember when he calls people pedos?), but that won’t work. Certain ideologies literally have no shame.

      • @tburkhol
        link
        303 days ago

        Musk is definitely racist, and his support for H1B is a feature of that racism. He thinks “those orientals and Indians” are good at tech and “hardcore.” H1B lets him bring them over, treat them like slaves, and send them back home if they get uppity.

        MAGAs would feel the same about immigrants in agriculture and hospitality, if they thought there was a reliable way to send them back home at the end of the workday.

      • @Eldritch
        link
        English
        183 days ago

        Whoa whoa whoa. The apartheid trust fund baby racist?! Like you didn’t steal and hock daddy’s emeralds to get your start like everyone else did.

        And yes that’s literally how Elon got started in the us. He’d be lucky to be flipping burgers if he wasn’t born with wealth and privilege.

    • @brucethemooseOP
      link
      10
      edit-2
      3 days ago

      First, maybe Clinton and Musk have more in common than Musk or Trump supporters realized until now…

      Second, he knows. He owns Twitter and their massive analytics apparatus, he probably knows more than most people on the planet. But I think musk is half blustering, and half frustrated Trump World is trying to do what it campaigned on instead of bowing to him.

      • @Eatspancakes84
        link
        53 days ago

        Musk once understood very well that Dems were good for business as they subsided electric cars and space exploration. Over time he became upset with the Dem policies especially on transgender issues (due to his transgender daughter), and more full of himself. He convinced himself that his business, which essentially exist on state support, could thrive without it. Leopards are now eating his face.

  • @CharlesDarwin
    link
    English
    293 days ago

    Oh no! I thought calling someone else a racist, justified or not, was the very worstest thing you could do!

    Is Elon infected with the WOKE MIND VIRUS?

  • 𝔻𝕒𝕧𝕖
    link
    413 days ago

    Trump is not a billionaire!

    He’s a con artist that likes to make people believe he’s a billionaire. Did you forget he barely made payments that he was court-ordered to pay? Even going as far as looking for people to pay it for him in return for favorable political treatment once he’s in office?

    Pepperidge farm remembers.

    • rigatti
      link
      English
      143 days ago

      You have to wonder how much money he does actually have. It’s certainly enough to live like a rich person. And he surely will make more now that he won the presidency again.

      • @thesohoriots
        link
        English
        43 days ago

        He can’t even organize enough to get a couple grand for venues. Even if he has money, he’s got shit spending habits on shit taste. For sure the guy who wants you to Venmo him for the coffee you had at lunch.

        • rigatti
          link
          English
          23 days ago

          He’s never been one to pay his bills. His whole thing is making people sue him for the money he owes them and then dragging out the legal process until it’s not worth it for them anymore.

  • @givesomefucks
    link
    English
    443 days ago

    Does he think Maga cares?

    They’re openly racist and are proud of it, Elmo buying Twitter was a large part of them feeling comfortable to go mask off.

    • @brucethemooseOP
      link
      10
      edit-2
      3 days ago

      Some do, just through a very different lens:

      Steve Bannon, one of the longest-tenured voices in Trump’s orbit, had multiple guests on his show this week to talk about his hardline anti-H-1B views.

      Bannon tells Axios he helped kick off the debate with a now-viral Gettr post earlier this month calling out a lack of support for the Black and Hispanic communities in Big Tech.

      • @givesomefucks
        link
        English
        123 days ago

        Bannon tells Axios he helped kick off the debate with a now-viral Gettr post earlier this month calling out a lack of support for the Black and Hispanic communities in Big Tech.

        I didn’t make it all thru the video.

        But when people like that say “college should have X% of minorities” they’re not saying they’re gonna help accomplish that. It’s a dig that they’re not and an implication that it’s their fault.

        They’re definitely not talking about DEI.

        But trump apparently saying if you graduate from a US college you get a green card…

        That’s not going to sit well with any Republican who wouldn’t save money on labor costs.

        Bannon and trump aren’t the same entity. MAGA and trump aren’t even the same.

        If Republicans split over this, trump will try to stay out of it because he’s a pussy. Elmo will head the b Oligarch half and someone like Bannon will try to capture the MAGA movement.

        • @brucethemooseOP
          link
          153 days ago

          I suspect Trump will change try to sell Musk’s position to his base. He’s not really ideologically driven, he’s driven by what benefits him personally, and like it or not, selling sacks of excrement was Trump’s strength even before he got into politics.

          • @givesomefucks
            link
            English
            133 days ago

            He’ll 100% drop MAGA, voters can’t help him anymore, billionaires can.

            And racists hate being dropped by someone more than they hate minorities. They’re not gonna stop being racists because trump told them too. They’re gonna focus all their anger on him for the switch.

            We’re gonna see more rightwing attempts on his life.

            trump was never driving the MAGA base, it’s a tsunami wave that he managed to surf for a while, but he could never control the wave, and he’ll likely be pulled under by it and slammed against the shore.

            I know how they think, the county I grew up voted 95% trump in the last three elections. I moved long ago, but I know how they think.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    253 days ago

    Bannon is an accelerationist who believes in the inevitability of and is trying to bring about a race war.

  • @yesman
    link
    243 days ago

    This dust up over HB1 is my favorite Christmas present. Seeing Vivak and Elon elitesplain why immigrants are good to MAGA is never going to get old.

    We need to keep this issue in the cycle. Can we get Jefferies to declare that expanding HB1 is the Democrats top priority? Perhaps introduce legislation to loosen the restrictions on H1Bs.

    • @jaybone
      link
      153 days ago

      If we fix our higher education system, companies could hire citizens. Even then though, I think a lot of companies abuse the H1B system, because they can pay less. (You are supposed to have to make a case that no US worker could fill that job role.)

    • @brucethemooseOP
      link
      143 days ago

      Maybe it’s a prelude to a larger class war, when MAGA realizes they basically voted in a billionaretocracy, and wants it out.

    • @DontRedditMyLemmy
      link
      13 days ago

      Is it possibly you guys are making too much of this? I’ve literally not heard one word about this topic outside Lemmy. I don’t think MAGA knows.

      • @brucethemooseOP
        link
        73 days ago

        It’s objectively getting a lot of engagement on Twitter, hence political outlets like Axios (who live in that world) are reporting on it.

        Social media is siloed. Honestly, if you aren’t seeing this in your other feeds, that’s probably a good thing.

  • @Treczoks
    link
    183 days ago

    He is right calling the GOP racists. But that is the pot calling the kettle “black”.

  • Sabata
    link
    fedilink
    133 days ago

    A racist calling those racist racist only makes them more racist.

  • @AbidanYre
    link
    English
    203 days ago

    The apartheid nepo baby is calling other people racist? That’s cute.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    113 days ago

    Some great points made by users in this thread, but my main question from reading this was, “What the hell is Gettr?”