[rmk]

Whether I am trying to look smart or not is irrelevant. The article fails to be convincing at even a most basic level. By your logic, no company that hires H-1Bs is free to do layoffs, including of people in auxiliary functions that do not call for high-skill, limited-supply workers, which is absurd.

[Sohcahtoa82]

Come off it already. Collect and examine the evidence:

- Elon says he wants to replace American workers with H1Bs

- Tesla lays off 15,000 people across all departments, including engineering

- Tesla applies for 2,405 H1Bs

Sure, we don't have a spreadsheet that says "Bob has been replaced by Raj", but pretending the dots don't connect is willful blindness. Acting like this is some wild coincidence isn't the clever gotcha you think it is.

Like...if I tell you, "My hobby is stealing catalytic converters", and the next day, several cars in my neighborhood are suddenly missing their CCs and a stack of CCs that match all the models of my neighbors' cars and have clearly been sawed off appears in my garage, it's gonna be pretty obvious what happened. Gonna have a hard time with the "It's all coincidental" defense.

[emodendroket]

I am as skeptical of Musk as the next guy but doesn’t everyone continue hiring at some reduced rate even after layoffs? It seems hard to believe that 2,400 people are going to do the work of 15,000, no matter how great their work ethic or how precarious their visa.

[ritcgab]

> Elon says he wants to replace American workers with H1Bs

Source?

So Tesla laid off 15,000 people. How many of them are US citizens? It applies 2,405 H-1B's for later hirings, sure, but that includes renewals and transfers. Is that number higher than the laid-off part? Nobody knows.

[gscott]

It expects readers to have common sense.