WEST PALM BEACH, Florida – President-elect Donald J. Trump on Saturday sided with key supporter and billionaire tech Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Elon Musk in a public dispute over the use of the H-1B visa, saying he fully backs the program for foreign tech workers opposed by some of his supporters.

Mr. Trump’s remarks followed a series of social media posts from Mr. Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, who vowed late Friday to go to “war” to defend the visa program for foreign tech workers.

Mr. Trump, who moved to limit the visas’ use during his first presidency, told The New York Post on Saturday he was likewise in favor of the visa program.

“I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program,” he was quoted as saying.

Mr. Musk, a naturalized US citizen born in South Africa, has held an H-1B visa, and his electric car company Tesla obtained 724 of the visas this year. H-1B visas are typically for three-year periods, though holders can extend them or apply for green cards.

The altercation was set off earlier this week by far-right activists who criticized Mr. Trump’s selection of Sriram Krishnan, an Indian American venture capitalist, to be an adviser on artificial intelligence, saying he would have influence on the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

Mr. Musk’s tweet was directed at Mr. Trump’s supporters and immigration hard-liners who have increasingly pushed for the H-1B visa program to be scrapped amid a heated debate over immigration and the place of skilled immigrants and foreign workers brought into the country on work visas.

On Friday, Steve Bannon, a longtime Trump confidante, critiqued “big tech oligarchs” for supporting the H-1B program and cast immigration as a threat to Western civilization.

In response, Mr. Musk and many other tech billionaires drew a line between what they view as legal immigration and illegal immigration.

Mr. Trump has promised to deport all immigrants who are in the US illegally, deploy tariffs to help create more jobs for American citizens and severely restrict immigration.

The visa issue highlights how tech leaders like Mr. Musk — who has taken an important role in the presidential transition, advising on key personnel and policy areas — are now drawing scrutiny from his base.

The US tech industry relies on the government’s H-1B visa program to hire foreign skilled workers to help run its companies, a labor force that critics say undercuts wages for American citizens.

Mr. Musk has spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars helping Mr. Trump get elected in November. He has posted regularly this week about the lack of homegrown talent to fill all the needed positions within American tech companies. — Reuters

SEOUL — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held a key policy-setting meeting of the country’s ruling party last week ahead of the new year, state media KCNA reported on Sunday.

The meeting of party and government officials decided that North Korea would launch the “toughest” strategy to counteract the United States for its security and national interests, the report said, without elaborating.

The alliance between South Korea, the US and Japan has expanded to a “nuclear military bloc” and South Korea has become an “anti-communist outpost” for the US, the KCNA report added.

“This reality clearly shows to which direction we should advance and what we should do and how.”

The Dec. 23-27 meeting also reviewed the handling of floods earlier this year, including the plan that brought those affected to Pyongyang, the capital, according to the report.

The reclusive state also vowed to promote relations with “friendly” countries during the meeting.

Mr. Kim also called for progress in defense science and technology to bolster the country’s war deterrence.

Such meetings often last a few days and have been used in recent years to make key policy announcements.

In a reshuffle, Pyongyang named Pak Thae Song, a party secretary, as a new premier to replace Kim Tok Hun.

Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui was named a member of the powerful Politburo of the party’s Central Committee.

The 11^th plenary session of the eighth central committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea wraps up a year in which Russian President Vladimir Putin held a summit with Mr. Kim and signed a deal that included a mutual defense pledge.

Washington and Seoul have criticized the two countries’ military cooperation, including what they say is a dispatch of North Korean troops to fight for Russia in its war against Ukraine. — Reuters