Online chaos erupted this past week between the MAGA base and two of Donald Trump’s top team picks, Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk. What turned into a heated debate across social media that lasted for several days started when the two tech pros posted about their support of a specific kind of immigration process called the H-1B program. This program was founded in 1990 and is geared toward recruiting the top talent in the world to work for American companies to keep us competitive in the rapidly developing areas of technology, engineering, and medicine.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the H-1B program has specific standards of education and skill for the applicant to qualify, such as a bachelor’s degree and experience in a specialty occupation. The program also specifies that it is there to “help employers who cannot otherwise obtain needed business skills and abilities from the U.S. workforce.” Furthermore, “Employers must attest to the Department of Labor that they will pay wages to the H-1B nonimmigrant workers that are at least equal to the actual wage paid by the employer to other workers with similar experience and qualifications for the job in question.”

In other words, this program is not meant to replace American workers if a U.S. citizen can provide the necessary skills. If a noncitizen is hired, businesses are not supposed to pay them less than what an equally skilled and experienced U.S. citizen would make in the same position.

The impassioned dispute on this subject started when Musk responded to an inquiry: “The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies made America strong is because of H1B.” He added vulgar instructions for his interlocutor to emphasize his point.

Predictably, X blew up with accusations from many on the Right, who now seemed to believe that Musk was flipping his position on the immigration issue. They worried that having an influential figure in Trump’s orbit “turn” might jeopardize promises of reinforcing America’s strict immigration policies.

To back up Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy joined in the conversation with his own take on the matter. In a long post on X, Ramaswamy argued that it’s not that we don’t have the capability of providing the best of the best in these “elite” areas of business from our own nation, but that our drastically declining cultural values means we don’t have enough of our own skilled individuals to compete with the top talent across the globe. He accurately pointed out that we have work to do if we want the next generations of future workers to fill these competitive jobs and strive for excellence instead of accepting the mediocrity that far too many young people settle for today.

“Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer),” Ramaswamy said. “This doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.”

Nikki Haley didn’t appreciate his take, chiming in to reject his claims that America lacks the necessary drive to compete. “There is nothing wrong with American workers or American culture,” she replied. “All you have to do is look at the border and see how many want what we have. We should be investing and prioritizing Americans, not foreign workers.”

Arguably, that is precisely what Ramaswamy was suggesting. He prompted us as a nation to improve our overall mindset regarding hard work, which will benefit and invest in our job seekers.

Also, there is a vast difference between large caravans of people coming to America to take advantage of Democrat-sponsored freebies or to enrich the human- and drug-trafficking cartels and attracting the most brilliant minds in the world to help our country take the lead in technological advancements.

To attempt to clear things up, Musk asked us to view our objectives for growth and success as a coach would. “This is like bringing in the Jokic’s or Wemby’s of the world to help your whole team (which is mostly Americans!) win the NBA,” he posted. “Thinking of America as a pro sports team that has been winning for a long time and wants to keep winning is the right mental construct.”

His point is that the talent brought to the team, especially if players are the most skilled and talented in their position over anyone else on the planet, is a gain for the whole team.

Global competitors like China and India continue to rapidly develop their own technologies and artificial intelligence and recruit top engineers and medical professionals. They are building their teams out of the best of the best — and America needs to do the same.

To further reassure frustrated conservatives, who have largely supported Musk and Ramaswamy based on their pledge to further Trump’s agenda to Make America Great Again, both have promised that they want to clean up the H-1B program and every legal immigration process. They aim to impose further restrictions to prevent abuse, to keep employers from using these things for cheap labor, or to replace American workers.

The last four years brought an invasion at our southern border by illegal immigrants from all over the world. Joe Biden’s America Last administration repeatedly put Americans last in all areas of society, costing them everything from housing to jobs to education. Understandably, many on the Right are deeply bothered by the talk of continuing immigration at all, at least until we get our own house back in order.

Four years ago, the conversation may have been received differently. Perhaps the better approach for both Elon and Vivek would have been to read the room and recognize that the time for this discussion is not now.

Let incoming border czar Tom Homan get to work and start producing results, and then we can talk about immigrant visas without the exhaustion of watching our immigration system be thrown out the window.