Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Monday voiced support for President Donald Trump’s sweeping overhaul of the H-1B visa program, even as U.S. technology companies reeled from the prospect of paying $100,000 per application for foreign workers.
Trump on Friday announced the new fee, a drastic increase from the previous structure where visa fees ranged from $2,000 to $5,000 depending on company size. As of Sunday, all new H-1B visa applications will require a $100,000 payment, and employers must provide documentation of the payment before filing an H-1B petition. According to the White House, applicants will have their petitions restricted for 12 months until the payment is confirmed.
The move represents a seismic shift for the U.S. technology and finance sectors, which have long depended on highly skilled immigrant workers to fill roles that domestic labor cannot.
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Speaking in an interview with CNBC’s Jon Fortt, Huang tied the debate directly to America’s identity and the tech sector’s future.
“We want all the brightest minds to come to the U.S. and remember immigration is the foundation of the American Dream,” he said. “We represent the American Dream. And so I think immigration is really important to our company and is really important to our nation’s future, and I’m glad to see President Trump making the moves he’s making.”
Altman echoed Huang’s endorsement, describing Trump’s changes as an opportunity to streamline and incentivize the immigration process.
“We need to get the smartest people in the country, and streamlining that process and also sort of outlining financial incentives seems good to me,” Altman said.
The supportive remarks came as both executives announced a groundbreaking financial partnership: Nvidia will invest $100 billion in OpenAI to accelerate the lab’s plan to build data centers worth hundreds of billions of dollars, powered by Nvidia’s AI processors.
Who Does This Impact?
According to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, the fee will only apply to new H-1B applicants, not renewals or current visa holders. Those who already have H-1B visas and are located outside the United States will not be required to pay the fee in order to re-enter.
The $100,000 charge will be implemented in the upcoming lottery cycle and is a one-time payment, not an annual charge. Exceptions can be made for immigrants whose employment is deemed essential to the national interest by the Secretary of Homeland Security and who pose no threat to U.S. security or welfare.
Leavitt added that employees with B visas whose start dates fall before October 2026 will receive additional guidance to prevent companies from using temporary business visas as a workaround for the stricter H-1B system.
The H-1B program allows highly skilled foreign professionals to work in specialty occupations that typically require at least a bachelor’s degree. The majority of these jobs fall within science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields.
The reliance is especially heavy in the tech and finance sectors, with workers from India and China dominating the program—accounting for 71% and 11.7% of visa holders last year, respectively.
The current annual cap for H-1B visas is 65,000, with an additional 20,000 visas reserved for foreign professionals holding advanced degrees from U.S. institutions. A lottery system is used to allocate petitions when demand exceeds the cap, which is the case most years.
Since 2012, computer-related jobs have accounted for about 60% or more of approved H-1B visas, according to Pew Research.
The biggest beneficiaries are America’s largest tech companies. Amazon sponsored over 10,000 H-1B applicants in the 2025 fiscal year, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Microsoft and Meta each secured more than 5,000 approvals, while Apple and Google rounded out the top six employers with over 4,000 each.
Shockwaves in the Tech Workforce
For smaller firms and startups, the $100,000 filing fee may prove devastating. While giants like Amazon, Google, and Meta can absorb the costs, younger companies may be priced out of the global talent market entirely.
While those already holding H-1B visas will avoid the fee, the steep increase for new applicants threatens to reshape global mobility patterns, potentially redirecting skilled talent to Canada, Europe, or Southeast Asia, where visa pathways are cheaper and more accessible.
The fee hike aligns with Trump’s broader economic nationalism agenda, repositioning foreign talent as a premium privilege rather than an affordable pipeline for U.S. companies. For firms like Nvidia and OpenAI, the move complicates the balance of advocating for immigrant workers while backing a policy that imposes extraordinary costs on hiring them.
Some analysts believe that Huang and Altman’s support reflects both political calculation and corporate strategy. By aligning with the White House, they emphasize their ability to weather the disruption while underscoring the competitive advantage of scale that protects industry leaders from policies that could cripple smaller rivals.