this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2024
832 points (98.8% liked)

politics

19271 readers
1613 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Summary

Elon Musk faced backlash from his followers on X after advocating for importing “super talented engineers” to address a shortage in the U.S. tech industry.

Musk likened hiring top foreign talent to building a championship sports team and argues that there is a shortage of talented and motivated American engineers.

Critics argued there’s sufficient U.S. talent being overlooked or underpaid, with some pointing to widespread tech layoffs.

Musk dismissed claims of low wages or training gaps, maintaining a need for exceptional engineering talent to advance innovation.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 18 points 6 days ago
[–] DrFistington@lemmy.world 12 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Yeah, when you import your slaves you can pay them less and they're more subservient because they don't want to be deported. It also drives down the wages for US citizens that perform the same jobs. News flash, there are plenty of good software engineers in America. They just aren't going to work 60 hours a week for 60k a year while the company they work for posts billions in profit each year.

If you need my skill and time to make a million dollars, I better be getting at least 15-20% of that profit. Employers can obviously afford to pay it if they can give a CEO that barely does shit 250 mil plus stock options

[–] WilderSeek@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

I know most people will write this off as him being an idiot, but I believe he's doing this to distract from his involvement with the government. It's all theater to distract us from what he and the politicians he's heavily involved with are actually doing. Add in his involvement in the tech trade, and it's actually really disturbing what he may be doing.

[–] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

Elon wamts to destroy education in the US so this is to compensate for that move.

[–] Gjolin@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 days ago

He's right though. One of the reasons the US is so technologically dominant is because of the brain drain. Of course there are also employers and employees who abuse and try to game the VISA system. That is also true.

I feel like people are talking over each other. The top 0.1% of talent goes to the US because the US has better growth opportunities and better prospects than any other place on earth. It's not just about sourcing talent. It's also about denying competitors that same talent.

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 297 points 1 week ago (10 children)

Musk doesn't want a championship sports team, he wants a cheap, desperate, obedient source of labour.

[–] Ohmmy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 84 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Ah yes, the American dream.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (9 replies)
[–] Critical_Thinker@lemm.ee 188 points 1 week ago (12 children)

shortage of engineers? are you kidding me?

I know of two first degree of separation SWEs who can't land jobs. One worked at microsoft for like a decade.

FTFA:

Other followers accused Musk of simply not wanting to pay top talent what it's worth.

Bingo, got it in one. They don't want to pay american talent american wages, they want to pay all talent 3rd world country wages while they themselves pocket a 50 billion dollar contract.

[–] Wogi@lemmy.world 62 points 1 week ago (11 children)

He's running out of inexperienced engineers to burn through. He statedv early on that he wanted to create a surplus of engineers to drive down the cost.

That cost being, paying the engineers' salaries.

I work pretty closely with a lot of young engineers. My work brings them in as interns, hires them, but doesn't pay them very well and after 2 years we have new engineers because they've all found better jobs. Saturating the market with talent really hasn't worked out the way he wanted it to, because as it turns out that's nothing new.

So now he's gotta find a new way to pay engineers less.

load more comments (11 replies)
load more comments (11 replies)
[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 123 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Musk likened hiring top foreign talent to building a championship sports team and argues that there is a shortage of talented and motivated American engineers.

There's not, it's just they want good wages and working conditions

As an employer the way to get cheaper workers that accept worse conditions is flood the labor pool. With the cost of an American education, H1B's will always take less. Not just from foreign countries, but also from "better" countries with free education.

This isn't just bad for the tech sector, it's bad for everything that requires an advanced degree.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 113 points 1 week ago (3 children)

He didn't explain to them that holders of H1B visas have to stay with the corporation that hires them or else they get deported. It's semi-slavery. Conservatives would love it.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Gork@lemm.ee 109 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Why work for a man who expects his workers to work "hardcore" for 80 hours a week without any overtime pay?

Sounds like exploitation to me.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world 105 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Super talented = extremely desperate foreigners who'll work 90hr weeks for very low pay.

Just in case anyone needed a translation.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] sudo42@lemmy.world 99 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Ya'll are not reading between the lines here.

"The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low,"

The "AND super-motivated [sic]" is key here. By "super-motivated" he means working 80-100 hours for shit pay.

Yeah, both American citizens and H1Bs area getting tired of this shit.

On another vein, his government "positions" listing

"We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting." for "zero pay".

Is code for, "I want corporate lackies for this job." Corporations will pay it's reps to "work" in these government positions and basically lobby. No one else will bother because normal people got mouths to feed.

[–] Aslanta@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

Almost all of the HB-1 sponsors in my workplace are making 100k+. That may be lower than the average pay for that position in some cases, but it’s definitely not starving anyone.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] fibojoly@sh.itjust.works 81 points 1 week ago (2 children)

What I'm reading is that he wants Chinese or Indian engineers because they are as qualified as the next guy, they're already used to insane hours and no holidays AND he can just pay them their original wage, which is peanuts compared to what US engineers make. Also once he's done with them he can just deport them. What's not to like?!

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Gerudo@lemm.ee 79 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Why don't you make the education system here in the US better first.

LOL who the fuck am I kidding.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] Michal@programming.dev 74 points 1 week ago (4 children)

"import" like it's livestock. Strategically avoiding the word "migration", too.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 69 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Deport the foreigners taking our jobs except for the ones who directly benefit me.

What. A. Shitstain.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Nougat@fedia.io 57 points 1 week ago (6 children)

This is what's causing backlash? Not any of the Nazi shit?

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 53 points 1 week ago (1 children)

But I thought we wanted to deport people, not import them.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 60 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Please reference this simple chart:

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›