❓WHAT HAPPENED: Vice President J.D. Vance publicly criticized Microsoft and other Big Tech companies for laying off thousands of American workers while continuing to apply for H-1B visas to hire foreigners.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Vice President Vance, American tech companies, and President Donald J. Trump.
📍WHEN & WHERE: United States, July 24, 2025.
💬KEY QUOTE: “We want the very best and the brightest to make America their home. We want them to build great companies and so forth. But I don’t want companies to fire 9,000 American workers and then to go and say, ‘We can’t find workers here in America.’ That’s a bulls**t story.” — J.D. Vance
🎯IMPACT: Vance’s comments amplify criticism of Big Tech for prioritizing foreign hires while laying off U.S. workers.
Vice President J.D. Vance criticized Big Tech companies for taking advantage of the H1-B visa program by firing American workers and hiring a multitude of H1-B visa holders from other countries. “You see some big tech companies where they’ll lay off 9,000 workers, and then they’ll apply for a bunch of overseas visas. And I sort of wonder; that doesn’t totally make sense to me,” Vance said at the Hill and Valley Forum.
“That displacement and that math worries me a bit. And what the President has said, he said very clearly: We want the very best and the brightest to make America their home. We want them to build great companies and so forth. But I don’t want companies to fire 9,000 American workers and then to go and say, ‘We can’t find workers here in America.’ That’s a bullsh*t story,” Vance added.
Microsoft said earlier in July that it would be laying off 9,000 workers. One of the hosts at the Hill and Valley Forum asked Vance directly, “What did Microsoft say when you brought that up with Microsoft?” Vance laughed and admitted that it was Microsoft that he had been referring to, noting that despite laying off 9,000 workers, the company is “saying they’re desperate for workers.”
🚨 JD VANCE SCORCHES VISA SYSTEM: “Big tech companies will lay off 9,000 [American] workers and then they’ll apply for a bunch of overseas visas! […] I don’t want companies to fire 9,000 American workers, and then to go and say, can’t find workers here in America. That’s a… pic.twitter.com/NBZUK5m6WW
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 24, 2025
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