Trump honors Microsoft’s CEO after Vance drops an H-1B visa hammer on the company

Hours after Vice President JD Vance accused Microsoft of misusing the visa system, President Donald Trump gave its chief executive, Satya Nadella, a National Medal of Technology and Innovation. The contrast exposed a tension between the administration's push to curb immigration and its reliance on technology companies driving economic growth, according to ABC News.

Vance told reporters that Microsoft was barred from a program under which employers sponsor green cards for skilled workers on H-1B visas. He said the company dismissed 6,000 American employees last year while securing 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards. Microsoft responded that most of its H-1B filings in the last fiscal year concerned current employees whose status was being extended or changed. Asked about the mixed message, Vance said the administration would keep a strong relationship with the company. He also called for visa-fraud investigations of several universities, among them Stanford and MIT.

At the White House summit, Trump also awarded National Medals of Science to Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, Jensen Huang and Lisa Su, and the technology medal to Michael Dell. Five of the six honorees were born abroad. Trump called them "national treasures."

Summarized by PolitiKool from ABC News’s reporting. Read the full story at ABC News →