How Are Business Leaders Reacting to Trump’s H-1B Visa Plan?

The US$100,000 application fee for the H-1B foreign worker visa has divided opinion among business executives.

US President Donald Trump signed the proclamation introducing the fee on 19 September, meaning that any new applicants starting from the next visa lottery in February onwards would be faced with this cost.

The H-1B visa allows businesses to hire foreign skilled workers for jobs that require specialised knowledge and a bachelor’s degree or higher.

The White House says the increase is designed to encourage companies to hire American workers, but leaders from US-led firms have expressed different levels of support for Trump’s decision when considering how it will affect their businesses.

In an interview with CNBC on 22 September, Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, said that he was “glad to see President Trump making the moves he’s making”.

John Waldron, Goldman Sachs Presidents is reported by MSN as saying that the company’s large global footprint means it needs worldwide talent and that “the more barriers we put up around the world, the harder it is for companies like ours to do that."

John said that mounting restrictions on cross-border mobility make it harder for global firms to attract the people they need.

He didn’t mention the new fee directly, but said it would be much better for companies “if we could allow that talent to move around”.

Tech CEOs in support of Trump’s decision 

After Nvidia announced a US$100bn investment in OpenAI to build large-scale data centres using OpenAI's processors, the companies' CEOs voiced support for the H-1B fee-hike in a CNBC interview.

Talking about Trump’s announcement, Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO, said: “We want all the bright minds to come to the US and remember immigration is the foundation of the American Dream.

“We represent the American Dream. And so I think immigration is really important to our company and is really important to our nation’s future, and I’m glad to see President Trump making the moves he’s making.”

The new fee will cause a drastic shift for the US technology and finance sectors, which rely on the H-1B for highly skilled workers particularly from India and China.

According to The Washington Post, 71% of the H-1B visa holders in the 2024 fiscal year were from India and 11.7% from China.

But Sam also expressed a positive outlook to the visa fee hike, saying: “We need to get the smartest people in the country, and streamlining that process and also sort of outlining financial incentives seems good to me.”

Reed Hastings, Netflix co-Founder and Chairman, shared in a X post on 21 September that he thinks Trump’s US$100k per year fee is “a great solution”.

“It will mean H-1B is used just for very high-skilled jobs, which means no lottery needed, and more certainly for these jobs”, he wrote.

Financial sector caught off guard

Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan CEO, said in an interview with CNBC that he supports “merit-based” immigration but expects that employees who rely on the H-1B visas will object to Trump’s order.

Business Insider reported that JP Morgan ranked highest for the amount of applications for the visas, with the financial services company Goldman Sachs ranking third.

Jamie said the move has “caught everyone off guard”.

“He has accomplished border control, that’s great, I mean, I think all nations want real border control, that helps make a nation, but after that, we should have good immigration”, he added.

Jamie said the move has “caught everyone off guard”.

“He has accomplished border control, that’s great, I mean, I think all nations want real border control, that helps make a nation, but after that, we should have good immigration”, he added.