Elon Musk is not your friend

OPINION:

For all of the normal people who wisely disengage from politics at Christmastime, you missed quite the real-world lesson in why presidential administrations usually consist of people who share some ideological coherence with the president.

Last week, President-elect Donald Trump decided to select Sriram Krishnan as one of his advisers on artificial intelligence. Mr. Krishnan is apparently an aggressive advocate of increasing the number of people allowed to stay in the United States under the H-1B visa program. The program is designed to ensure that a handful of American companies can access the foreign market for those who are good at math.

Some of Mr. Trump’s allies immediately raised alarms about Mr. Krishnan and, by extension, the H-1B visa program, asserting, probably correctly, that it suppresses wages, is little more than indentured servitude operated by large corporations and takes jobs from Americans.

Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy rode to the defense of the program, making it clear through several unfortunate tweets or Xs or whatever that Americans are too stupid, lazy or both to fill the jobs occupied by holders of H-1B visas. Mr. Ramaswamy was especially emphatic in his critiques of American society, arguing that we value all the wrong sorts of people and things.

That is quite an odd set of thoughts for a first-generation American billionaire whose fellow citizens are at least smart enough to value his contributions to the nation. I wonder how he would be doing if his parents had stayed in the old country. Mr. Musk, a naturalized citizen, gamely tried to argue that expanding the H-1B program is exactly what the president-elect has in mind when supporting legal immigration.

The reality is that H-1B visa holders are not immigrants; they are here on what is essentially a work permit. They are migrant workers, most with fewer ties to the United States than those who work our farms.

This is no small matter. Despite the nominal statutory limit of 85,000 visas per year, the government issues closer to 400,000 H-1B visas each year because universities, nonprofits and governments are exempt from the statutory cap. At any given moment, there may be as many as 3 million people in the United States on this visa.

After the brief and intense back-and-forth, the president-elect came down on the side of Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy this time, but at what cost?

The president-elect has, intentionally or otherwise, created an environment in which those who identify as his allies may pose greater challenges than his adversaries. By enhancing the profile of Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy, he has empowered those who are not always aligned with respect to policy and who may ultimately have personal incentives that result in damage to the administration.

It is difficult to pinpoint why Mr. Musk has attached himself to the new administration. Perhaps it is to preserve and expand his advantages with respect to space exploration. Perhaps it is about protecting his investments in China. Perhaps it is something we cannot yet see. We can, however, say with some confidence that the world’s richest man wants something. Mr. Ramaswamy’s agenda is much less opaque: He wants to be president.

Last week was a preview of the chaos that can emerge when there are people on the team who have their own agenda and are capable of pursuing that agenda through various channels that are not always responsive to the president.

In the wake of an election, it is always tempting to conclude that the winning side will advance from victory to victory and achieve all of their goals. The reality is, however, that everything in this world has a limit, and the fortunes of American elected officials and their policy preferences are no exception. That’s especially true when one surrounds oneself with potential antagonists.

• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times.