Brad Smith, who holds the roles of Vice Chair and President at Microsoft, put forward the view that tightening entry pathways for overseas professionals with advanced technical skills could erode the country's standing in the technology sector and make it a less attractive destination for people pursuing careers in artificial intelligence and software engineering.
At the International AI Summit held in Dublin, Ireland, Smith spoke with a prominent television outlet about reservations over an administration policy curtailing green card pathways for overseas professionals employed at Microsoft and seven other firms. Smith's view holds that visa and residency pathways posing obstacles for experienced engineers and AI professionals carry a practical cost — those workers may direct their careers toward technology centres elsewhere in the world.
The remarks came after US Vice President JD Vance put forward a notice that Microsoft and seven other named companies would be barred from filing green card applications on behalf of skilled overseas workers for the duration of a government inquiry into alleged misconduct tied to visa arrangements.
In a written statement, Microsoft pushed back on the allegations, with Smith characterising the claims as having no factual grounding. His contention was that those overseeing the administration had been working from flawed data about the firm's practices around hiring and immigration compliance. According to the statement, the bulk of Microsoft's green card filings cover staff members who have been with the company for an extended period, rather than those brought on board more recently.
Smith attributed the volume of pending applications not to any deliberate push to recruit workers from abroad, but to longstanding queues and processing holdups built up within the US green card system. When questions arose about whether overseas hires at Microsoft receive lower pay than their domestic counterparts, Smith pointed to a unified pay structure the company applies across staff in equivalent positions. Pay structures, the statement noted, are shaped by the scope of a role and an employee's track record — not by where a worker was born or holds residency.
Hiring within the United States drew attention from the executive, who pointed to a figure of more than 9,000 domestically born workers brought on board by Microsoft across the prior twelve months. From his perspective, that aspect of the company's hiring record had drawn little scrutiny amid the broader resistance from the administration.
Pointing to the record of immigrant-driven advances in American technology, Smith made the case that this pattern stretches back through the country's history. Of the six people awarded national medals for technology and science by the president, five had roots outside the United States, the speaker pointed out. His case centred on the documented role that foreign-born innovators have played in driving output, technological advancement, productivity gains, and higher living standards across the economy — alongside questions about whether certain policy directions might weaken the country's capacity to draw comparable talent going forward.
Rivalry for talent in artificial intelligence has grown across borders, drawing national governments and technology firms alike into a broad contest to secure researchers, engineers, and software developers with advanced expertise. Those at the helm of the technology sector have repeatedly put forward the view that drawing on workers from abroad underpins a nation's ability to stay competitive in the field.
On 8 October, a formal statement from Microsoft put forward a defence of the company's hiring and workforce practices. Visa-extension and status-adjustment filings accounted for roughly four out of every five of the approximately 6,000 H-1B petitions the firm submitted across the preceding fiscal year — covering workers already on its payroll rather than candidates recruited from overseas — and the organisation noted that its domestic workforce draws the majority of its headcount from American citizens.
At that same occasion, Satya Nadella — the Microsoft chief executive who built his career in the United States after arriving on an H-1B visa and whose background connects to India — received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation from Trump, a conferral that drew wider notice given the intersection of his personal history with ongoing policy debates around skilled-worker visas.
Smith voiced reservations about the administration's immigration policies, yet separately expressed support for its approach to AI safety and oversight. Tighter oversight of advanced AI systems drew his endorsement, with export curbs placed on select AI models among the policies he highlighted.
At the heart of the dispute lies a tension federal policymakers have yet to resolve: how to pursue tighter border controls, shield jobs held by domestic workers, and still draw in the overseas expertise that fields like artificial intelligence, advanced software, and other next-generation technologies increasingly depend on.
