TOI correspondent from Washington: US President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday picked Chennai-born venture capitalist and Elon Musk confidant Sriram Krishnan as the White House advisor on Artificial Intelligence policy, triggering consternation among some MAGA radicals about immigrant roles in the incoming administration.
In a post on social media, Trump said Sriram Krishnan “will focus on ensuring continued American leadership in A.I., and help shape and coordinate A.I. policy across Government,” noting that his putative A.I czar started his career at Microsoft as a founding member of Windows Azure.
Krishnan subsequently led product teams at Twitter, Yahoo!, and Facebook, before returning to Twitter-turned-X in 2022 after Musk bought it to help him rebuild the platform, when he was already a general partner of the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. The firm’s key principal Marc Andreesen, the founder of Netscape, has been a major Trump supporter, and has, like Elon Musk, been camping at Mar-a-Lago to help with the transition.
Trump also said Sriram will be working closely with the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and David Sacks, like Musk another South African-American whom he has named as the White House crypto czar.
Acknowledging Trump’s announcement Krishnan said he is “honored to be able to serve our country and ensure continued American leadership in AI,” amid disquiet from some of the more nativist MAGA flock on social media.
“Someone should tell Donald Trump that AI doesn’t stand for import Another Indian,” wrote one critic, even as MAGA nativists dredged out Krishnan’s past social media posts in which he had called for allowing H1B visa holders to start companies or transition to entrepreneur visas, among other things.
In a “wishlist” he posted on December 3, Krishnan had also called for fast tracking green cards for technical fields – engineering and hard sciences. “Anything to remove country caps for green cards / unlock skilled immigration would be huge,” he had said in an earlier post.
Groups opposed to the H1-B visa regime and tech immigration bristled at the idea. “This has nothing to do with skilled immigration. This has to do with @sriramk having ethnic loyalty to his fellow Indians who have exploited the H-1B visa system for gaining immigration benefits,” a group called Project for Immigration Reform clapped back.
“The majority of H-1Bs are Indians coming via some IT body shop displace American workers. And Sriram wants to reward this practice with green cards?” it asked.
Another online group called @USTechWorkers that has long railed against the H1B system called it “a very questionable appointment by @realDonaldTrump,” noting that “@sriramk’s pet issue is expanding the H-1B visa program and removing country cap quotas for Green Cards. Not America First at all.”
However, Trump’s choice of Krishnan was welcomed by the broader tech commentariat. “The appointment of a tech-savvy leader like Krishnan reflects the Trump administration’s recognition of AI as a critical element for global competitiveness. For enterprises, this could bring regulatory clarity or, conversely, added scrutiny in areas such as data sharing, intellectual property, and the ethical use of AI,” the journal CIO noted.
