US Vice President JD Vance announced the development on Thursday at a press conference at the White House, accusing Microsoft of abusing the H-1B visa programme for highly skilled foreign workers.
Vance alleged that Microsoft had laid off 6,000 American workers while replacing them with 6,300 H-1B visa holders.
“Our message to Microsoft is: you’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers,” Vance said.
The announcement came just hours before Trump was scheduled to present Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella with the US’ most prestigious technology medal at a ceremony in Washington.
Vance also announced that Adobe was being suspended from the visa programme.
Meanwhile, nine elite US universities, including Harvard, Yale, Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), are facing investigations over alleged misuse of a separate visa programme for academic and study exchanges.
Vance accused the institutions of relying excessively on foreign researchers and using the programme to obtain cheaper labour.
“Something weird is going on at these universities, they’re using these visas way too much,” he said.
The investigations are part of the Trump administration’s broader campaign against major US universities, which it has accused of promoting left-wing bias and antisemitism.
The administration has also moved to freeze billions of dollars in federal funding for Harvard.
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