Tired of Muskaswamy

Is it just me, or is anyone else getting a little tired of the Muskaswamy “first buddy” lecture series? Those dudes have enough ego between them to power a month of mansplaining.

Even before Mr. Musk “buddied up” to Donald Trump, he had a lot to say about the failings of the American worker in comparison to, say, the Chinese. He praised the “motivated” workers at the Shanghai Tesla plant who were locked inside and made to work 12-hour shifts, 6 days a week, and to sleep on factory floors. All this for the princely sum of $1500 a month.

In fact, Mr. Musk is so enamored with the Chinese worker that he is building a new battery production facility in Shanghai. His hissy fit over the recent budget resolution may have stemmed from a provision in the bill that would have blocked the transfer of critical US-developed intellectual property to China, interfering with his off-shoring project. That bit was stripped out in the final bill—a win for Musk.

More recently, Muskaswamy spoke out in favor of expanding the HB-1 visas that allow tech companies to bring in foreign-trained engineers. When it was suggested that expanding STEM programs and reskilling workers would enable Americans to compete for those jobs, Musk said, basically, Nah.

“The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low,” said Musk, and the “mental differences between Americans and foreign skilled labor was enormous.”

Vivek Ramaswamy also weighed in, saying, “Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer.”

Besides, quality public schools and the recruitment of skilled teachers costs money. It’s much cheaper to slash funding for education and import talent from abroad.

How are mediocre low-ability Americans supposed to survive? Maybe they can take over the arduous physical work that undocumented migrants used to do before Trump booted them out.

Don’t get me wrong—I believe that immigrants of all skill levels play a huge role in fueling our economy. I think a scorched-earth approach to immigration is a mistake. But I can’t help but suspect that the push for HB-1 visa expansion is related to the fact that, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, 60% of all HB-1 jobs are assigned wage levels that are well below the local median wage…. 17% to 34% lower on average for computer occupations, which are among the most common HB-1 occupations. Highly-skilled American engineers often achieve upward mobility by changing jobs. H-1B visa holders can’t do that. For the tech bros, it’s the next best thing to moving your jobs to China.

In the interests of full disclosure, I confess that my husband is a retired aerospace engineer. Both of my sons are software engineers. They are the products of public schools and state universities. I raised them to be ethical, honest, hard-working citizens, good partners to their wives and involved fathers to their children. It was never my dream that they work long hours at low wages in sweatshop conditions to make Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy richer than they already are. And that, my friends, is what’s wrong with the American worker.

I recently heard that New Hampshire governor Sununu claims that Elon Musk is so rich, he’s not vulnerable to conflicts of interest. Based on what I’ve seen so far, I’m not buying it.