H-1B System 'Broken,' Need 'Major Reform,' Says Musk

Days after pledging to "go to war" in defense of the H-1B visa program, tech billionaire Elon Musk has turned his sights on the system itself, labeling it "broken" and in need of "major reform."

The entrepreneur, who emigrated from South Africa to the US on an H-1B visa, suggested overhauling the scheme by significantly raising the minimum salary for visa holders and imposing an annual fee to maintain the visa.

Responding to a post on X, the social media platform he owns, Musk argued that the system could be "easily fixed by raising the minimum salary significantly and adding a yearly cost for maintaining the H-1B, making it materially more expensive to hire from overseas than domestically."

The remarks come amid a growing debate over the future of the H-1B visa, a program that allows US companies to employ highly skilled foreign workers in specialized fields such as technology and engineering. Technology firms have long depended on the visas to hire thousands of employees from countries, including India and China.

According to data from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Indian nationals were granted 72.3 percent of all H-1B visas issued in 2023, highlighting the program's importance to workers from South Asia. In total, 755,020 people were admitted to the US on H-1B status last year, according to the Office of Homeland Security Statistics.