As promised, US President Donald Trump pulled off a major overhaul of the H-1B visa program by imposing a $100,000 application fee on Friday (US time). Signing a proclamation ahead of the weekend, the MAGA leader has left companies with no choice but to make the hefty investment, which is 60 times higher than the pre-existing cost (ranging from $2,000 to $5,000 per application), if they wish to obtain visas for foreign talent.
The latest step in the execution of the world leader’s ‘America First’ ideology is an overt move focussed on encouraging companies to hire American workers. With Indians dominating the nonimmigrant ‘specialty occupations’ category and constituting over 70% of the applicants in recent years, the Indian Government condemned the decision.
Officials from the South Asian nation believe it will likely have “humanitarian consequences by way of the disruption caused for families,” as the measure’s “full implications” are still being studied.
H-1B fee chaos
In light of the confusion prompted by the measure signed by the POTUS, the White House’s rapid response account issued a clarification on X stating that the proclamation will only impact future recipients part of the lottery cycle beginning March 2026. “The Proclamation does not apply to anyone who has a current visa,” the account tweeted.
With uncertainty clouding international workers and applicants, WH press secretary Karoline Leavitt further said on Saturday that $100,000 was merely a one-time fee applying to every petition. Her social media post contradicted Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s remarks from the previous day, as he claimed that employers would have to pay the fee per year for H-1B visas.
While panic continues to consume work visa holders in the US, Silicon Valley CEOs are reacting to the changing visa landscape in the country along the way. As per NBC News’ report, tech giants like Amazon, Google, Meta and Apple, alongside Walmart, are among the biggest names to have made the most of the visa program. Most of these industry leaders, including Elon Musk, Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai, are also H-1B success stories.
Silicon Valley CEOs on H-1B visa fee rule imposition
Netflix co-founder: Reed Hastings, who claimed to have worked on “H-1B politics for 30 years,” praised Trump’s “$100k per year tax” a “great solution” in a X post over the weekend. He further stated that the president’s measure meant that the visa program would now be “used just for very high-value jobs” by getting rid of the lottery system, thereby providing “more certainty for those jobs.”
I've worked on H1-B politics for 30 years. Trump's $100k per year tax is a great solution. It will mean H1-B is used just for very high value jobs, which will mean no lottery needed, and more certainty for those jobs.
— Reed Hastings (@reedhastings) September 21, 2025
Y Combinator CEO: Garry Tan, on the other hand, pointed out that while the annual fee could be afforded by Big Tech, it would “kneecap” startups and bodyshops, and so it was a “mistake.”
Nvidia CEO: In an interview with CNBC, Jensen Huang remained optimistic about the new changes. While backing Trump’s executive order, he said, “We want all the brightest minds to come to the United States. Remember immigration is the foundation of the American dream, and we represent the American dream.”
He noted that immigration was important to their own company just as much as it was to the country. It all falls into place especially since Nvidia had 1,519 H-1B filings out of 36,000 global employees at the end of FY 2025, according to a Business Insider analysis. Huang then added, “I’m glad to see President Trump making the moves he’s making.”
OpenAI CEO: Sam Altman also reacted to the development in the same interview, saying, “We need to get the smartest people in the country, and streamlining that process and also sort of aligning financial incentives seems good to me.”
Tesla CEO: Elon Musk’s constantly changing views on the issue are mapped in his old tweets. In December 2024, he wrote, the South Africa-born SpaceX boss wrote, “No questions that the H1B system needs to be overhauled.” The same day he eventually switched tones and tweeted, ““The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B.”
Yet he maintained at the time that the program was “broken” and needed “major reform.” He added in the same post, “Easily fixed by raising the minimum salary significantly and adding a yearly cost for maintaining the H1B, making it materially more expensive to hire from overseas than domestically.”
JPMorgan CEO: As per Jamie Dimon, Trump’s $100,000 fee “came out of the blue,” adding they will be “engaging with stakeholders and policymakers.” The Times of India quoted him saying, “For us, visas matter because we move people around globally – experts who get promoted to new jobs in different markets.”
He further stated, “The challenge is that the US still needs to remain an attractive destination. My grandparents were Greek immigrants who never finished high school. America is an immigrant nation, and that’s part of its core strength.”
CoreWeave CEO: The cloud computing company’s boss Michael Intrator firmly established during an interview with CNBC TV that they would be complying with the new policies going into effect under the Trump admin. “Having said that,” he continued, “we like, the other technology companies, do depend upon talented partners, individuals.. to work in our country, to help us build and drive this technology forward.”
He then called any additional fee being included in the picture as “sand in the gears,” adding that while some of it is acceptable, it does “decelerate access to certain tax.”
More reactions will be added.