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Billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramswamy weighed in on a social media debate about the United States’ reliance on foreign engineers being hired in Silicon Valley.

Musk and Ramaswamy have been tasked by President-elect Donald Trump to run the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is expected to crack down on federal spending. They have also been supportive of Trump’s proposed immigration plan, which promises mass deportations of illegal immigrants.

Ramaswamy on Thursday claimed that there were not enough competitive U.S.-born engineering candidates for the open positions, and suggested the reason for that was because of American culture celebrated jocks and popularity instead of brainiacs. 

“The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over ‘native’ Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation),” Ramaswamy wrote in a post on X. “A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture.”

“Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer),” Ramaswamy continued. “A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”

Musk said on Wednesday that he would prefer to hire American engineers for his tech companies, but also cited the shortage of talent.

 “OF COURSE my companies and I would prefer to hire Americans and we DO, as that is MUCH easier than going through the incredibly painful and slow work visa process,” the tech billionaire wrote in a post on X. “HOWEVER, there is a dire shortage of extremely talented and motivated engineers in America.”

The debate resurfaced this week after Trump appointed Sriram Krishnan as senior policy adviser for artificial intelligence, who suggested Musk consider lifting caps on green cards for skilled immigrants, according to The Hill. 

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.