Donald Trump Making Powerful Enemies In Silicon Valley

While the tech industry has been historically uninvolved in politics, the recent net neutrality battle in Washington proved that Silicon Valley has the ability to make its voice heard. That's why presidential hopeful Donald Trump may be in for a world of hurt after he called out Facebook Inc FB's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg over the weekend.

Cut Down Foreign Workers

Trump announced his plans to reform immigration on Sunday, which call for changes to a work visa program used to bring highly skilled foreign engineers to the United States. Firms like Facebook have been using H-1B visas in order to bring in fresh talent and grow their businesses, but Trump claims the program is taking jobs away from qualified Americans.

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Trump wants to raise the wages paid to H-1B workers in order to give firms an incentive to first look for qualified Americans. He said such a scheme would help the tech industry by filling positions with more women and minorities, thus easing the industry's diversity issues. Trump also slammed Zuckerberg by insinuating that the firm supports rival candidate Marco Rubio because he is willing to increase H-1B visas.

Tech Firm Respond

In response to the remarks, Fwd.us, a lobbying group founded by Zuckerberg that fights for issues the tech industry cares about, wrote a blog post outlining the flaws in Trump's plans.

The post claimed that highly skilled immigrants create new jobs and help unemployment. The group argued that international engineers are essential to up-and-coming tech firms who are looking for top-of-the-line specialized talent and without the visa program, tech innovation in the US could be stifled.