Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley slammed her onetime GOP presidential primary opponent Vivek Ramaswamy on Thursday for arguing American culture is to blame for a lack of U.S.-born engineers.
“There is nothing wrong with American workers or American culture,” Haley wrote in a post on the social platform X. “All you have to do is look at the border and see how many want what we have. We should be investing and prioritizing in Americans, not foreign workers.”
Ramaswamy, who is set to co-chair the “Department of Government Efficiency” alongside Elon Musk, suggested Thursday that Silicon Valley hires more foreign-born engineers because American culture has “venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long.”
“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” he said.
“This can be our Sputnik moment,” Ramaswamy added. “We’ve awaken from slumber before & we can do it again. Trump’s election hopefully marks the beginning of a new golden era in America, but only if our culture fully wakes up.”
The back-and-forth between Haley and Ramaswamy is reminiscent of the barbs the two traded on the campaign trail as they both contended for the Republican presidential nomination last year.
Haley called the tech entrepreneur “scum” after he brought up her daughter at the third GOP primary debate last November, while Ramaswamy called the former U.N. ambassador a “fascist” at the fourth debate just weeks later.
The latest tiff between the two comes as the Silicon Valley conservatives, who have increasingly become involved in President-elect Trump’s incoming administration, find themselves at odds with their fellow Republicans on some immigration policies.
Tech leaders such as Musk and Ramaswamy have argued that immigration of highly skilled people is important for the industry, even as they support Trump’s plans for mass deportations.
“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,” Musk wrote on X on Wednesday. “HOWEVER, there is a dire shortage of extremely talented and motivated engineers in America.”
