‘Hire great American workers’: Vance targets Microsoft in H-1B visa crackdown

WASHINGTON, Oct 9 — Vice President JD Vance announced that software giant Microsoft was being suspended from an H-1B visa program as part of a fraud crackdown by President Donald Trump's administration. Harvard University, along with other top American universities, faces an investigation over alleged visa fraud, Vance said. The vice president, who is seen as a frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2028, urged Microsoft to hire more American workers, saying, "You’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers."

This announcement came just hours before Trump was set to award Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella the highest US technology medal at a ceremony in Washington. Vance accused Microsoft of abusing the H-1B visa program for highly-skilled foreign workers, stating that Microsoft had laid off 6,000 American employees while replacing them with 6,300 H-1Bs.

Microsoft defended itself, claiming that the majority of its US employees are American and that the 1% of its workforce in the US was not new to the country. They also noted that H-1B employees were paid the same as their counterparts. Adobe was also suspended from the visa program, according to Vance. The Trump administration has been targeting major universities for alleged bias and antisemitism, seeking to cut billions in federal funding for institutions like Harvard.