TOI correspondent from Washington: On the same day US vice president JD Vance put Microsoft in the crosshairs over its use of foreign workers, his boss Donald Trump was preparing to honour the company’s CEO, Satya Nadella, with America’s highest technology awards at a White House ceremony.Asked about the award for Nadella as he announced the strike against Microsoft, Vance said that the administration didn’t want to harm the company but send them a message that they ought to hire Americans over foreign workers.“So we’re going to continue to support Microsoft and have a great relationship with Microsoft, but we’re also going to deny them the ability to apply for these permanent residencies until they show that they are going to get serious about putting American workers first,” he said.Nadella, who has headed Microsoft since 2014, was born in Hyderabad, India, and moved to the United States for graduate studies before rising through Microsoft’s ranks to become its chief executive.There is another distinctly Indian dimension for Vance himself. His wife, Usha Vance, is the daughter of Indian immigrants whose family roots are in Andhra Pradesh.Her parents, Krish and Lakshmi Chilukuri, moved to the US around 1980 and built academic careers in San Diego, California. The Chilukuri family has deep roots in the Visakhapatnam region of Andhra Pradesh.And the connection comes full circle in Hyderabad, the city where Nadella was born and where Microsoft established its India Development Centre in 1998, making it the largest research and development centre outside its Redmond headquarters, employing some 20,000 professionals.“Our message to Microsoft is: You’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers,” Vance said.
