A in helping to provoke Heated debate on H-1B visaElon Musk is speaking from personal experience and as a business owner. That's because his company, electric car maker Tesla, is one of the American companies that brings thousands of foreign engineers and other skilled workers to the US every year.
After not making the top 25 H-1B visa employers in previous years, Tesla is now ranked 16th, according to the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), a non-partisan think tank focused on trade and immigration issues.
While lagging far behind technology giants like Amazon, IBM, Microsoft and Google, Tesla significantly increased the number of employees hired through the visa program in 2024, from 742 approved H-1B petitions to 328 for initial employment. More than doubled. NFAP found that record in 2023. Tesla also had 1,025 H-1B petitions approved for continued employment into 2024.
Musk, who worked in the US on an H-1B visa early in his career, said, “I am in the US with many important people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies who made America stronger because of the H-1B. ” Posted On his social media site on Friday, Musk vowed to wage war on “this issue you can't possibly understand.”
Musk and his companies are certainly not alone in using the H-1B program to fill their employee ranks. The tech industry has long been pushing to expand the number of H-1B visas granted by the government to bring skilled workers to the US from India, China, Canada, Korea, the Philippines and other countries.
According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the program has a cap of 65,000 news visas each year, although an additional 20,000 can be issued for employees with a master's degree or higher.
According to NFAP, here is the list of the top 20 companies listed by the number of H-1B petitions for initial employment approved by the US in fiscal year 2024:
- AmazonThe e-commerce company had the most approved H-1B petitions with 3,871 for initial employment in 2024. This figure was down from more than 4,000 H-1B visas in 2023 and about 6,400 in 2022.
- knowledgeableThe information technology services firm had the second highest number of H-1B petitions approved in 2024 with 2,837.
- infosys2,504 petitions of digital services and consulting company were approved in financial year 2024.
- tcsTata Consultancy Services is at fourth position with 1,452.
- IBMThe technology company nicknamed Big Blue collected 1,348 petitions.
- MicrosoftThe technology group approved 1,264 petitions.
- HCL AmericaThe computer programming solutions provider had 1,248 approved H-1B visas.
- GoogleThe search engine ranks 8th with 1,058 H-1Bs.
- capgeminiThe information technology company granted 1,041 H-1B visas last year in 2024.
- meta platformMeta, formerly known as Facebook, was behind the 920 approved petitions.
- Deloitte891 petitions of audit and tax consultancy company were approved.
- AppleThe iPhone and laptop maker's stake stood at 864.
- intelSemiconductor company count came to 851.
- accentureThe IT company received approval for 833 petitions.
- LTIMindTreeThe global technology consultant count is 798.
- Tesla742 petitions from electric car makers were approved.
- Ernst & YoungThe accounting firm tallied 741.
- Goldman SachsInvestment banks and financial services firms received 678.
- wiproThe number of IT service providers came down to 609.
- wal-martThe retailing giant is behind 654 approved H-1B petitions.