Republicans criticized Elon Musk's comments supporting the H-1B visa program and foreign workers over American employees, leading to their verification badges disappearing on his social media platform, X.
The tensions between Musk and MAGA-aligned conservatives have been building for months as Musk, once embraced by Trump loyalists, began making statements that clashed with their "America First" immigration and labor priorities, Mediate reported.
Musk and his co-chair of the Department of Government Efficiency, Vivek Ramaswamy, openly supported highly skilled worker immigration through the H-1B visa program. That led to backlash from Trump-aligned influencers who argue the program displaces American workers.
The conflict intensified after Trump appointed Indian-American venture capitalist Sriram Krishnan as an AI adviser, further inflaming the debate about immigration policies.
Prominent right-wing figures like Laura Loomer, Gavin Wax and Owen Shroyer claim Musk retaliated against their criticism by stripping their X verification badges, demonetizing their accounts and temporarily suspending them.
Loomer argued that the platform is silencing free speech, accusing Musk of hypocrisy despite his self-proclaimed "free speech absolutist" stance.
"Elon has decided to retaliate by removing my blue check and demonetizing me. I guess he doesn't really believe in free speech after all," Loomer wrote on X.
BREAKING:
— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) December 27, 2024
🚨🚨🚨@elonmusk has removed my blue check mark on X because I dared to question his support for H1B visas, the replacement of American tech workers by Indian immigrants, and I questioned his relationship with China.
Looks like Elon Musk is going to be silencing me... pic.twitter.com/6hvTGCEZHw
Musk has not directly addressed the accusations but tweeted cryptic messages about categorizing spam accounts, which some interpret as targeting his critics.
"That said, any accounts found to be engaged in coordinated attacks to spam target accounts with mute/blocks will themselves be categorized—correctly—as spam," Musk wrote.
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