Elon Musk migrant visa row deepens as tech mogul accused of 'censorship' as X 'posts criticising his stance are removed'
Headliners panel react as Elon Musk threatens war with Maga republicans
GB News
Elon Musk has been accused of censorship by prominent right-ring accounts who say they have lost premium X features on their accounts after they criticised the billionaire’s views on immigration.
The SpaceX founder said he would “go to war” with Maga Republicans who have criticised the H-1B visa, which allows highly educated immigrants to work in the US for up to six years.
Musk himself came to the US from South Africa on the visa in 2002, and has now vowed to kick out any “hateful, unrepentant racists” in the Republican party who oppose it.
The Tesla CEO has now decided to revoke privileges on these accounts, according to multiple conservative accounts.
Elon Musk has been accused of censorship by prominent right-ring accounts who say they have lost premium X features on their accounts
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They claim that the billionaire has removed their blue tick, a verification badge that allows users to monetise their content.
One account, called ConservativeOG, claimed that over 50 users had noticed their ticks had vanished after critiquing Musk.
“With Elon's shift on H-1B visas, we now would like answers for losing our gold checkmark. Cooler heads must prevail to restore badges for our 50+ affiliates. Right or wrong, this platform claims to champion free speech—so let's see it in action,” ConservativeOG wrote on X.
“We pay 1K a month for a ‘free speech platform’, we want that!”
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Elon Musk came to America from South Africa on an H-1B visaReutersWhen Musk bought the site in 2022, he said that negative posts wouldn’t be banned but instead “max deboosted”, which would make them difficult to find.
He said this policy would only apply to tweets, rather than entire accounts.
Conservative activist Laura Loomer claimed she was censored on X after criticising H-1B visas.
“Full censorship of my account simply because I called out H1B visas,” she posted. “This is anti-American behaviour by tech oligarchs. What happened to free speech?”
The row centred on the H-1B visa first kicked off when Vivek Ramaswamy, who has been appointed as Musk's co-chair on Trump's new advisory board DOGE, said that American culture was to blame for its need to hire foreign workers.
“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian [the top student in a class], will not produce the best engineers,” he said on X.
The fierce debate kicked off when Vivek Ramaswamy said that American culture was to blame for its need to hire foreign workersReutersIn a now deleted reply, Musk said: “That pretty much sums it up. This was eye-opening.”
Musk later said: “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.
“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 wrote on X.
“Take a big step back and F**K YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.”
His post garnered nearly six million views within hours, triggering an immediate backlash from Trump loyalists - many with an anti-immigration stance - who have questioned his dedication to the Maga movement.
Trump has now waded in on the debate, siding with his “first buddy” Musk in praising the skilled migrant visas for bringing foreign talent to the US and saying that he has “always liked the visas”.
However, not all Trump supporters agreed with the President-elect, with congressman Matt Gaetz stating: “We welcomed the tech bros when they came running our way to avoid the 3rd grade teacher picking their kid's gender.” He continued: “We did not ask them to engineer an immigration policy.”
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