
Musk says American workers are not “super talented”
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have repeatedly demonized undocumented immigrants but are changing their tune when it comes to their own business interests. Both the Left and Right hate H-1B visas because they take away jobs from American laborers, replacing them with cheaper labor that is easier to control. But Musk argued over X this week that Silicon Valley needs foreign coders because American workers are not “super motivated” nor “super talented”.
“The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low. Think of this like a pro sports team: if you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be. That enables the whole TEAM to win.”
Ramaswamy agreed, posting:
“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”
One X user responded with a counterargument (her account was reportedly terminated just after making this post).
“My son graduated with honors with electrical and computer engineering degrees in 2023. He can not get an interview, let alone a job.”
Are Indian programmers better than American coders?
Musk claims he hires foreign coders because they are technically superior. I have worked in IT for a few decades now. It is common knowledge in the industry that they produce inferior code. A recent Reddit discussion about this in a developer forum was filled with comments like:
“Code from India can be truly awful.”
“I am currently working with outsourced code. I never knew how bad it could get.”
But don’t just take my word for it. Look at outside rankings in math and computer programming. In 2024, the United States of America and China dominated the International Mathematical Olympiad, with the U.S. narrowly edging out China. Additionally, the World Population Review found that the U.S. boasts the highest math ranking globally, based on the number of leading mathematical scientists. In contrast, India, which is the leading source of foreign programmers, did not rank in the top 10, which is stunning considering its population of 1.4 billion compared to 340 million in the U.S. By any standard, with a population over four times larger, India should crush the United States in almost any comparison, yet it does not.
Programming expertise by nation is similar. Measuring programming skills can be challenging, but SkillValue utilized GitHub data to assess programmers’ skill levels and found that the United States ranks among the top five countries for programming expertise. India, on the other hand, was not in the top ten.
You get what you pay for
It is no secret that Indian programmers are often chosen for their affordability, representing a tradeoff between quantity and quality rather than expertise in coding. Both Musk and Ramaswamy know this. Their recent bluster is intended solely to stake their position in favor of H-1B visas to the benefit of their personal business interests.
Update – 12/27/2024
I mentioned the X user who says their account was suspended after criticizing Musk’s post. Now, we find several prominent X accounts reporting that their badge and monetization have been suspended or revoked after Musk’s intentions were questioned.
