Key grassroots leaders of the recently triumphant MAGA movement went to war with Elon Musk on the question of immigration, in a spectacular argument that pointed to political divisions within their movement.

Tensions were already rising as Musk fanboys had started to promote their favourite capitalist as a co-president or ‘the real VP’ which angered the rampant egotism of Donald Trump who does not tolerate any competition. Musk made clear at a recent rally that Musk could never be president. Why? Because “He wasn’t born here”.  Musk, a South African who is now naturalised as a US citizen would always ultimately be an outsider for the MAGA people. 

This was the kindling for the wider explosion. Just before Christmas Day, Trump appointed US-Indian venture capitalist Siram Krishnan to be policy lead on AI. This was met with anger from some of the MAGA faithful – Krishnan had previously been a Democrat supporter so was seen as a suspect, but also crucially – not American. Well not fully ‘American’ in the way that they care about i.e. white. 

The argument was that Trump should focus on ‘home grown talent’, after all wasn’t the MAGA revolution meant to be about empowering white americans in the face of years of erosion of their power by the ‘equalities agenda’? 

Musk came to the defence of Krishnan, seeing in him a fellow capitalist who was simply good at his job. Vivek Ramaswamy, a previous presidential wannabe, also leapt to his defence.  Musk came under fire from MAGA people who accused him of being a traitor, and started sharing images of him being hung. Musk reacted in the way that only he can, labelling the MAGA people racists, below average intelligence and started to demonetise some of their accounts, effectively shadow banning some of them. So much for the infamous free speech warrior!  

The fall out was fun to watch in real time, and it exposed a real contradiction at the heart of the Trump movement, between capitalists who just want to use power to deregulate industry, cut taxes and further enrich themselves and the mass base who have immediate economic concerns over jobs and wages but understand it all through the prism of racism and nationalism instead of class. 

Immigration for capital

The paranoid world of the MAGA movement was on full display. They accused the tech bro finance capitalist elites of enacting the Great Replacement, inviting hoards of foreign people to replace the whites. Musk – speaking as an instrument of capital –  argued that you need to get skills from abroad if there is a shortage in the USA.

The argument eventually settled on the role of H-1B visas, where people with certain technical skills can come to work in the USA.  Tesla makes use of H-1Bs as do many other companies. They allow you to grant a work visa for three years to someone to fill skills shortages.

Musk and his ilk are no friends of workers of course, and their argument wasn’t one of colourblind civic minded business. They see us as mere commodities for their business ventures. The benefit of the H-1B visa is that is can be used as a form of indentured servitude. 

Steve Bannon, the far right creeping fascist ideologue of the movement labelled Musk a ‘techno-feudalist’ a term that some on the left like Yannis Varoufakis have also used. Bannon criticised Musk for wanting to employ only foreign workers he could control, and not prioritise investment in US education and STEM research. 

Musk’s argument is a reflection of the historic position of US capital, that the bosses are absolutely fine with immigration, as long as it is to fill the needs of capital. They were fine with open borders in the USA when the country was being built and they needed cheap labour from around the world. They had  relatively open borders until 1917 (and then the very repressive Johnson-Reed Act of 1924). Once they had enough labourers they tightened the screws over the 20th century until they ended up with an immigration system that exists mainly for the benefit of US capital (this of course is also the case for  every other capitalist country).

 The constant fear mongering over ‘mass migration’ is aimed at supposedly low skilled or unskilled workers coming to the west, it isn’t aimed at highly technical specialist engineers and computer scientists from India. The view of US capitalism is that they can simply poach ‘talent’ from anywhere in the world, entice them to the USA, exploit their knowledge and labour for the benefit of US capitalism and then threaten them with deportation if they complain about wages or working standards. 

MAGA racism or class solidarity

The demands of the MAGA far right are clear – close the borders immediately, deport the 20 million ‘illegals’ and invest in universities and technical colleges in the USA to train up white americans instead of relying on foreign workers.  In a sense they have a popular backing because they speak to an aspect of working class concerns, many Americans are worried about work and wages being lowered. Their problem is that they see their solution in what could only be an incredibly violent border policy and a practical isolationism.  They hate foreign workers and they look to apparently patriotic capitalists like Trump and Musk to defend their interests. 

What is becoming more apparent  is that there are class divisions within their own movement. Whilst the right reject Marxism and hate Marxists, for us seeing human society and its politics in class terms means we can understand the inner contradiction within Trumpism. 

Musk and the others showed utter contempt for the MAGA followers, it is clear that they wanted to use their votes to gain power for their own agenda, which on the surface looked the same but in reality is an economic and political project that will only benefit the capitalist class. 

Musk doesn’t particularly want to replace white US workers with Indian born ones, he wants to replace all workers with AI if he can. The future that the authoritarian capitalist class wants for us is grim, and they harness the racist discontent of sections of the wider population to gain the power they need to reshape society to their own agenda. 

This kind of division happened in the Nazi movement in the 1930s – the more working class Brown shirts actually believed Hitler’s vaguely ‘anti capitalist’ slogans (which were still based on racist ideology about the supposed  Jewish capitalist class) but Hitler’s real goal was to defend and strengthen German capital, this class contradiction in the movement was resolved during the NIght of the Long knives when the Brown Shirts leadership, including Ernst Röhm, were arrested and executed and his movement shut down. 

The desire for a good life based on secure work, decent wages, good housing and community cohesion cannot be delivered by capitalism, a system based on profit, competition and exploitation. It also cannot be meaningfully secured by racism which would have to be based on a deeply violent state and popular fascist movement which would be horrific to live under and could not be sustained long term, though some white people might temporarily benefit. We are still heading towards a reckoning over climate change and new technologies threatening jobs. 

Musk and MAGA are not just dead ends, they are actively part of the obstacle to  resolving the problems our society faces, not just in the USA but globally. We must build a movement that can overthrow the tyranny of capital and the way it monstrously undermines us as a species from reaching our real full potential – this involves challenging the racism, nationalism and ‘elites worship’ that is at the core of the modern far right.