This is disappointing to hear from Elon. CEO of Tesla Elon Musk has made it clear he supports H-1B visas. Musk in a recent interview shared that the United States benefits from giving H-1B visas to thousands of Indians each year. CNBC reported more on Musk’s comments that have many American conservatives upset: Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the U.S. has been a beneficiary of talent from India, while adding that the H-1B visa program had been misused by companies. In a podcast with Indian entrepreneur Nikhil Kamath aired Sunday, Musk said that while some companies had been using the H-1B visa to hire foreign employees at a “fraction of the cost of an American citizen,” his firms recruit to make up for the “scarcity of talented people.” U.S. President Donald Trump in September raised the H-1B visa fees to $100,000, disproportionately affecting Indians workers that make up more than 70% of H-1B visa holders. Trump last month appeared to soften his stance on H1-B visas, saying in an interview to Fox News that foreign labor was needed at times because U.S. did not have “certain talents.” “I’m certainly not in the school of thought that we should shut down the H-1B program,” Musk said, adding that it would be “very bad.” Musk, whose relationship with the U.S. president appears to be on the mend having soured in May over Trump’s spending bill, also raised concerns over the U.S. administration’s tariff policy. Once a close aid of Trump, Musk said he tried to dissuade the president from taking the tariff route, but was unsuccessful. “I think generally free trade is better” Musk said, adding that tariffs create distortions in markets. If tariffs at an individual level, or within each state of U.S. would be disastrous for the economy, “then why do you want tariffs between countries?” he said. The Tesla CEO, who spearheaded the formation of the Department of Government Efficiency that was recently disbanded with eight months left to its mandate, according to Reuters, said “the president has made it clear he loves tariffs.” Watch Musk here: Backup here if needed: Elon Musk on H-1B visas: “America has benefited immensely from talented Indians that have come to America” pic.twitter.com/1KOLdVMAbQ — Cash Casey (@cassiuscasey) November 30, 2025 Mashable India reported Elon later in the interview revealed he named one of his sons after an Indian professor: During his recent appearance on Nikhil Kamath’s podcast WTF, Tesla’s billionaire boss Elon Musk revealed that his partner of over three years Shivon Zilis, is ‘half Indian.’ He also shared a trivia about one of his sons, stating that he shares his middle name with a renowned Indian physicist. The scientist Musk mentioned is Indian-American physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrashekhar (19 Oct 1910 – 21 Aug 1995). The astrophysicist, who was born in Lahore (Pakistan) during the pre-Independence era, was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1983, alongside William A. Fowler. His uncle Sir C.V. Raman had earlier earned a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930. Chandrashekar became an American citizen in 1953. He is known for several pioneering works and inspiration to many who work in the areas of aerospace, astronomy, astrophysics, and related domains. SpaceX’s boss Elon Musk’s admiration for the legend is only natural. Musk’s other revelation of the mother of four of his children startled the desi internet. The world’s richest billionaire stated that Shivon Zilis is half Indian. The 39-year-old Neuralink executive is a Yale graduate and first gigged at IBM. She was a project director at Tesla, managing AI projects between May 2017 and August 2019. Zilis was also associated with Sam Altman’s OpenAI as an advisor from 2016 till 2019 and later as a board member from 2020 till 2023. She is also the director of operations and special projects at Neuralink. Per reports, Canada-born Shivon’s mother, Sharda, has a Punjabi ancestry and father, Richard Zilis, is a Canadian. ELON MUSK: “My partner Shivon is half Indian, and one of my son’s middle name is ‘sekhar’ after the Indian physicist, Professor S. Chandrasekhar.” pic.twitter.com/niJWBq6zSa — DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) November 30, 2025