Matt Walsh Questions Microsoft's H-1B Hiring as It Offers 60,000 Buyouts

Daily Wire host Matt Walsh said Tuesday that Microsoft's offer of buyouts to roughly 60,000 employees undercuts the company's case for hiring foreign workers on H-1B visas. The argument puts the tech giant back at the center of the Trump administration's fight over skilled-worker visas.

The remarks come less than three weeks after Vice President JD Vance accused Microsoft of abusing the visa system and announced Microsoft's suspension from a federal green card program.

"Microsoft currently has thousands of listings for H-1B employees, which at least in theory are supposed to be jobs that Americans can't fill," Walsh said on The Matt Walsh Show. Walsh did not give a source for that figure, and PolitiKool could not confirm it.

What Matt Walsh Said About Microsoft and H-1B Visas

Walsh said young Americans being pushed out of tech jobs are "noticing that H-1B visa holders, foreigners who Microsoft has brought to this country, aren't being impacted to any significant degree." He said that "for the most part, except for the foreigners, everyone is potentially on the chopping block," while acknowledging that Microsoft is exempting a small number of divisions, including cybersecurity, data centers and marketing.

He pointed to a screenshot posted on X that purportedly shows an employee asking how Microsoft can reconcile the buyouts with its claims that it cannot find enough qualified talent in the United States. Walsh said an HR reply pointed out that the employee still works with immigrant colleagues, which he summarized as "So basically, shut up and don't ask any questions."

Walsh acknowledged he had not verified the exchange. "I haven't authenticated it, though I have no reason to doubt that it's real. But it really doesn't matter because the point is a good one," he said.

He went on: "It'd be very racist to notice that at the precise moment Microsoft is planning to get rid of a large portion of its workforce, it's also claiming that it desperately needs to look overseas to find talent."

What Microsoft's Buyout Offer Covers

Microsoft announced the voluntary program Monday. It covers about 60,000 of its roughly 223,000 employees, NBC News reported, and is open to staff on selected teams in the United States, Canada, India and the United Kingdom. Eligibility depends on team, level and country. NBC's account of the eligibility rules does not mention visa status. Teams including Xbox, Windows and Copilot are part of the offer. Security and marketing staff are among those excluded.

Walsh said the terms track Microsoft's standard severance package, which includes at least eight weeks of base pay. He said that makes the deal "not exactly designed to be a tempting offer for most employees." Microsoft Chief People Officer Amy Coleman said the program "gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support."

Walsh compared the offer to General Motors' 2006 buyout, in which he said around 35,000 workers agreed to an early exit. "And as far as I can tell, this is the single largest buyout since then," he said.

What the H-1B Data Shows

Walsh's figure was job listings, which are not the same as approved visas. Approvals by employer are published in the USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub. A National Foundation for American Policy analysis of that data found Microsoft received 1,394 approved H-1B petitions for initial employment in fiscal 2025. That put it behind Amazon, with 4,644, and Meta, with 1,555, and ahead of Google, with 1,050, as the chart shows. The counts exclude continuing-employment approvals such as extensions and transfers.

Microsoft Already Faces the Trump Administration's H-1B Crackdown

On Oct. 8, Vance announced that Microsoft and Adobe were suspended from the PERM green card program. Vance said Microsoft laid off 6,000 American workers while benefiting from 6,300 H-1B visas, ABC News reported. "For every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants," Vance said.

Microsoft rejected Vance's characterization. The company said it "only files H-1B petitions for those who meet the rigorous standards" and that "the vast majority of Microsoft employees in the United States are Americans."

The suspension adds to broader changes. In September 2025, President Donald Trump imposed a $100,000 fee on new H-1B petitions for workers outside the United States. In December, USCIS issued a rule that weights the annual lottery toward higher-wage jobs.

What Happens Next

Walsh predicted the buyouts "will almost certainly become layoffs before long." Whether Microsoft's next round of H-1B petitions draws the same scrutiny from Washington is still an open question.