Trump plans to honour Microsoft's CEO after Vance drops H-1B visa hammer on company
The crackdown on Microsoft came under Vance's purview as the head of a fraud task force, but the targeting revealed the tension between the companies powering US economic growth and the administration's efforts to reduce immigration that it says has come at the expense of American workers.
Vice President JD Vance announced on Thursday that Microsoft would be suspended from a program allowing companies to apply for green cards for skilled foreign workers with H-1B visas. The move came shortly before President Donald Trump planned to honor tech billionaires, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, at a summit celebrating a new "golden age" of science.
Vance criticized the company for firing 6,000 US workers while obtaining 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards. He accused Microsoft of replacing American workers with "foreign indentured servants" and said the company must hire American workers. The other five tech leaders receiving awards are immigrants, with four born overseas.
Trump plans to give Nadella the National Medal of Technology and Innovation and Dell the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. The event comes as the White House seeks to highlight the economic benefits of AI investments, but faces bipartisan concerns about AI development and high costs for everyday items.
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