Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, a Democratic megadonor, is backing President Donald Trump’s executive order to create a $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applicants, calling it “a great solution.”
Hastings on Sunday said implementing the visa fee would ensure visas are used for “very high-value jobs,” thus eliminating the visa lottery system and providing more certainty for employers. His public support for Trump’s proclamation comes a year after he doled out $7 million to a PAC closely aligned with former Vice President Kamala Harris’s failed 2024 presidential campaign.
“I’ve worked on H1-B politics for 30 years. Trump’s $100K per year tax is a great solution. It will mean H1-B is used just for very high value jobs, which will mean no lottery needed, and more certainty for those jobs,” Hastings said in an X post Sunday.
Hastings and his wife have given over $20 million to the Democratic Party throughout the past few years, cementing the Netflix co-founder as one of the biggest donors to the party. The Netflix executive also gave $1.5 million to former President Joe Biden in 2020 and $100,000 in 2024 — before becoming one of his most influential donors to call for the president to end his reelection bid.
Prominent tech leaders and Trump backers, such as Elon Musk — a former H-1B holder himself — and Vivek Ramaswamy, have publicly touted the H-1B program as a legal immigration route to fill gaps in key industries.
Ramaswamy notably justified his support of the visa program claiming that America does “not produce the best engineers” in a viral December 2024 post. Musk said in an X post the same month that the “permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent” is a limiting factor in Silicon Valley.
However, some prominent conservatives have been critical of the visa. Longtime Trump confidant Steve Bannon blasted“big tech oligarchs” for supporting the H-1B program on his “War Room” podcast in December 2024.
The H-1B program allows foreign nationals employed in specialty occupations, such as technology and engineering, to enter the U.S. workforce. Over 400,000 people apply for the program — which only has roughly 85,000 spots available — every year.
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