Miller is the hardline anti-immigration ideologue who effectively oversaw immigration policy for the first Trump administration as a senior White House aide. He spent Trump’s first term mastering the workings of the federal bureaucracy and was one of only a few high-level appointees to remain in the boss’s good graces. In Trump’s second term, he’ll have another high-level role, as deputy White House chief of policy.

As I wrote in a September profile, Miller is the architect of Trump’s mass deportation agenda — but he’s also pushed hard to restrict legal immigration including H-1B visas specifically, despite his boss’s sometimes contradictory impulses on the issue. In Trump’s first term, Miller was tenacious enough that he eventually got his way: The administration cited the pandemic to “temporarily” suspend all H-1B visas while crafting rules designed to drastically limit the program.

So while Musk might be encouraged by the broadly positive comments on H-1B visas Trump made to a reporter on Saturday — the president-elect said he’s “been a believer in H-1B” — the real question is: Can Musk win a policy war with Miller?

Finally, there’s yet another twist to this messy saga — shortly before this dispute began last week, Trump announced he’d chosen a new appointee to join Musk and Ramaswamy at DOGE.

Her name? Katie Miller — Stephen’s wife.