Blog Post Title One
The Brain Drain Campaign
By: Adam Ageeb - Investment Associate
Contributing Editors: Nathan Li, Caden Warner
Trump announced a steep, $100,000 fee for the H-1B visa last Friday. Bringing jobs back to Americans may come at the cost of less Elon Musks.
Over the weekend, Trump signed an executive order attaching a $100,000 expense to the highly in-demand H-1B visas. Though unexpected by many, this aligns with Trump’s stance against the visa during his first term and his long-standing priority of putting American citizens first in the job market.
For context, every year the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issues 85,000 H-1B visas, which are highly limited and in demand, particularly in the tech industry. Amazon leads the pack, securing over 14,000 this past year, with other companies like Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Google also bringing in thousands. Some of the most prominent leaders in the tech industry initially came to the U.S. on H-1B visas, including Elon Musk, Zoom founder Eric Yuan, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
As the news spread, Big Tech companies urged their H-1B employees currently abroad to return to the U.S. as quickly as possible. One story even described an employee in India for a family event who spent over $8,000 to return before the end of the weekend. The panic eased somewhat after the White House announced the executive order would only affect new visas in the future, though more details are still forthcoming.
The most direct impact of this policy is, of course, the cost to companies. At $100,000 per visa and 85,000 issued annually, this would total $8.5 billion in expenses for companies and the same amount in government revenue. Whether this outcome is positive or not is up for debate, but the additional ramifications may be even more influential.
First, as mentioned before, some of the U.S.’s greatest leaders who were responsible for much of its growth came through this program. Adding such a steep financial barrier only makes it more difficult and less likely for companies to invest in the brightest minds the world has to offer. Meanwhile, waiting on the other side of the global race in AI is China, ready to seize the remnants of America’s once dominant brain-drain campaign.
Second, the policy could widen the gap between Big Tech and startups. While the largest companies with deep pockets may still afford these investments, newer ventures may struggle to pay for the talent needed to grow.
Taking everything into account, the bottom line is clear: this policy will slow down innovation by shrinking the pool of available talent in exchange for an insignificant increase in government tax revenue.