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Trump honours five foreign-born tech leaders hours after US targets major firms over green cards
Hours after the Trump administration suspended several technology companies from a key green card sponsorship programme, US President Donald Trump honoured six tech leaders for their contributions to American innovation. Five of the recipients, including Satya Nadella, Elon Musk and Lisa Su, were born outside the United States.
The administration has called on companies to prioritise American workers and has tightened immigration pathways for skilled foreign professionals. Yet the executives Trump recognised, lead some of the companies that have helped make the United States a global technology powerhouse, drawing on talent and expertise from across the world.
Nadella, the chief executive of Microsoft, was born in Hyderabad and previously worked in the US on an H-1B visa. Musk, the head of Tesla and SpaceX, was born in South Africa and has also held an H-1B visa. The other foreign-born recipients were AMD CEO Lisa Su, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Su and Huang were born in Taiwan, while Brin was born in Moscow, then part of the Soviet Union.
Michael Dell, founder of Dell Technologies, was the only US-born executive among the six.
Who are the five foreign-born tech leaders?
Satya Nadella, born in India
US President Donald Trump presents the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella during the “A New Golden Age” summit, in Washington, DC, US. File/Reuters
Nadella became Microsoft’s CEO in 2014 after joining the company in 1992. He led its shift towards cloud computing and helped expand its position in artificial intelligence.
Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform has become a major part of its business, while its investments in AI have placed the company at the centre of the global race to develop and deploy advanced models.
More from WorldNadella received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation from Trump. The White House cited his leadership in transforming Microsoft for the cloud computing era and building the infrastructure needed to train and deploy advanced AI systems.
According to The Washington Post, he previously worked in the US on an H-1B visa. In his 2017 memoir, he recounted surrendering his permanent residency in 1994 and applying for an H-1B visa so he could bring his wife to the country.
Elon Musk, born in South Africa
US President Donald Trump presents the National Medal of Science to Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk during the “A New Golden Age” summit. File/Reuters
Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and leads Tesla and SpaceX. Tesla helped accelerate the electric vehicle industry’s development, while SpaceX has transformed commercial space launches through reusable rockets.
Musk received the National Medal of Science for his engineering achievements in space exploration, intelligent systems and communications. The White House said his work had helped advance American technological leadership.
Musk previously held an H-1B visa, according to Reuters. He also became one of Trump’s biggest financial backers during the 2024 presidential election cycle, contributing more than $290 million, according to CNBC.
Lisa Su, born in Taiwan
US President Donald Trump presents AMD CEO Lisa Su with the National Medal of Science during the “A New Golden Age” summit. File/Reuters
Su is the chair and CEO of Advanced Micro Devices, or AMD, a major designer of processors and computing chips.
She became AMD’s CEO in 2014 and led its expansion in high-performance computing. Its processors serve personal computers, gaming systems and data centres, including infrastructure used for AI workloads.
Su received the National Medal of Science for her contributions to semiconductor engineering and high-performance computing.
Jensen Huang, born in Taiwan
US President Donald Trump presents the National Medal of Science to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during the “A New Golden Age” summit. File/Reuters
Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and remains its CEO. The company initially became widely known for graphics processing units used in gaming, but its chips have since become central to AI development.
Nvidia’s computing hardware is used to train and run large AI models. As technology companies invest billions of dollars in data centres, the company has become one of the most important suppliers of the infrastructure powering the AI industry.
Huang received the National Medal of Science for advancing graphics processing units into a general-purpose computing architecture.
Sergey Brin, born in Russia
US President Donald Trump stands with Google co-founder Sergey Brin, after presenting him with the National Medal of Science during the “A New Golden Age” summit. File/Reuters
Brin was born in Moscow in 1973, when it was part of the Soviet Union. He moved to the United States with his family as a child and later co-founded Google with Larry Page in 1998.
Google grew into one of the world’s largest technology businesses. Its parent company, Alphabet, now operates across internet search, digital advertising, cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
Brin received the National Medal of Science for his contribution to the development of information retrieval and data processing technologies.
What has the Trump administration changed?
The awards came on the same day that the administration widened its action against employment-based immigration.
The US Department of Labor announced that it would stop accepting new and processing pending Permanent Labour Certification applications involving Microsoft and several major technology services companies. These included Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini, according to Reuters.
The PERM process is an important step in many employer-sponsored green card applications. It generally requires companies to demonstrate that hiring a foreign worker for a particular job will not adversely affect qualified American workers’ wages and working conditions.
Vice President JD Vance accused Microsoft of benefiting from foreign-worker programmes while laying off American employees. He said the company had laid off 6,000 US workers last year while receiving 6,300 H-1B visa approvals and nearly 3,000 green cards.
Microsoft said that the implication that its visa use was primarily aimed at recruiting new foreign workers. The company said about 80 per cent of the H-1B applications it filed in the last fiscal year were intended to extend or change the status of existing employees.
Microsoft also said it paid H-1B employees the same as other workers performing comparable jobs.
The administration says its action is intended to protect American workers and address alleged abuses of immigration programmes. The companies’ inclusion in the suspension does not, by itself, establish that they committed fraud.
The H-1B programme allows US employers to hire foreign professionals for specialised occupations on a temporary basis. PERM, by contrast, is a labour certification process used in many employer-sponsored applications for permanent residency. Suspending a company’s access to PERM does not automatically cancel all its existing visas or prevent it from employing every foreign worker.
The administration has also pursued broader restrictions on skilled-worker immigration, including a $100,000 fee on certain new H-1B petitions for workers hired from abroad. Together, the measures have increased uncertainty for employers and foreign professionals seeking to work and settle in the US.
