Satya Nadella went from H-1B worker to Microsoft CEO. The Trump administration just shut that path for his employees

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has written that his story wouldn't be possible anywhere but the U.S. On Thursday, the Trump administration moved to block his company from helping its own foreign-born employees follow the path he took.

Vice President JD Vance announced on Oct. 8 that the administration is suspending Microsoft from the Labor Department's Permanent Labor Certification Program, known as PERM—usually the first step when an employer sponsors a foreign worker for a green card. Adobe and six IT services firms—Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services , Wipro, HCL Technologies, and Capgemini —were also suspended .

Hours later, President Donald Trump presented Nadella with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, one of the country's highest honors for innovation.

The Labor Department said it won't accept new PERM applications from the eight companies, nor process those already in the pipeline .

The move doesn't touch H-1B visas, the temporary work permits overseen by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. PERM comes later: To use it, an employer must advertise a job and show that no qualified, available U.S. worker can fill it before sponsoring a foreign employee for permanent residency . Most applicants are already working in the U.S. on H-1Bs.

Microsoft is the program's biggest user. The Labor Department ruled on 3,161 of its applications in the fiscal year that ended in September 2025, more than for any other employer, according to a GeekWire analysis .

Asked how long the suspension would last, Vance said it would "last as long as it needs to," adding that the administration has "a number of tools to suspend it indefinitely."

Doug Rand, a former senior USCIS advisor in the Biden administration, called the move "incoherent," telling the Associated Press that a green card frees a worker from depending on an employer for immigration status.

"So if the H-1B visa is how the people get into the country, the PERM program is how they stay in the United States to begin with," Vance said at a White House news conference . "Now there has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused the system more than Microsoft.

"Microsoft laid off last year 6,000 American workers," he said. "At the same time, the company benefited from 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards." He added: "In other words, if you do the math, for every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants."