Aravind Srinivas rejects claims of Indian H1B visa applicants taking away US jobs, urges people to look at data

Amidst a heated debate regarding immigration and H1B visas in the United States, Perplexity AI founder Aravind Srinivas opines against the focus on H1B visas. In an interview with the Economic Times he said that the foxus on H1B visas is misplaced and unsupported by data. He stressed illegal immigration as the more urgent issue. 

Elon Musk has strongly supported the issue of H1B visas. Musk in his argument last week highlighted the importance of foreign workers for tech companies and gave examples of SpaceX and Tesla, Musk’s own companies. Musk had supported US President-elect Donald Trump in his election campaign and has been appointed as one of the heads of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Vivek Ramaswamy, Indian American tech entrepreneur, has also been given the same charge.  

Srinivas said, “Clearly, it surprised everybody online and it's not exactly data driven -- the claims that the H-1B or Indian immigrants are taking away the jobs of laid-off American tech workers.” In his interview he also pointed out that layoffs have impacted Indians, and the US government should give priority to addressing illegal immigration.  

“Indians are also being laid off and honestly, the real problem… is the illegal immigration. That’s what the government needs to cut down on. The numbers are just an order of magnitude higher there, and even in legal immigration, the problem is actually that the sectors in which people are getting laid off are not necessarily the ones that the Indian H-1B applications are coming. People getting laid off are not necessarily all engineers. If people actually took a look at the data and saw it for themselves, they wouldn't be this angry,” he said. 

What is the H1B visa debate? 

The fiery debate has divided Donald Trump’s supporters in two. One side supports the H1B visa concept and the other opposes it. Those in support include Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Aravind Srinivas defended Trump’s pick for AI policy advisor, Sriram Krishnan, when he was being criticised for his post in which he supported H1B visas and immigration. Srinivas is of the opinion that such criticism is uncalled for and expects this controversy to die down once everyone examines the data.  

He also applauded Krishnan’s education and other qualifications and asked people not to misinterpret his statements. Srinivas has worked at DeepMind, Google, and OpenAI. His current company, Perplexity AI is valued at USD 9 billion.