Angry Silicon Valley steps up attacks against Trump

New York, Jan. 29: Google, Apple and other tech giants expressed dismay over an executive order on immigration from President Donald Trump that bars nationals of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US.

The US tech industry relies on foreign engineers and other technical experts for a sizeable percentage of its workforce.

The move, ostensibly intended to prevent extremists from carrying out attacks in the U.S., could now also heighten tensions between the new Trump administration and one of the nation’s most economically and culturally important industries. That’s especially true if Mr Trump goes on to revamp the industry’s temporary worker permits known as H-1B visas, as some fear.

Apple CEO Tim Cook in a memo to employees wrote “I share your concerns” about Trump’s immigration order, and “It is not a policy we support.”

Tesla Motors and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who has recently appeared to be cultivating a relationship with Mr Trump, tweeted that “many people negatively affected by this policy are strong supporters of the US” who don’t “deserve to be rejected.” Mr Musk is an immigrant from South Africa.

EBay founder Pierre Omidyar, whose parents are Iranian, also slammed the order as “simple bigotry”.

A leaked draft of an executive order published in The New York Times suggests Mr Trump’s next target might be the H1-B programme. The US grants visas to 85,000 foreign workers a year through a lottery system but Mr Trump’s administration wants to revise the allocation process for the H-1B “to ensure that beneficiaries of the program are the best and the brightest”. — Agencies

The blanket entry ban on citizens from certain primarily Muslim countries is not the best way to address the country’s challenges. — ELON MUSK, SpaceX founder