Trump shares cryptic message intended for Elon Musk with the world

President-elect Donald Trump sent a cryptic message to his billionaire tech friend Elon Musk on Friday hours after a brutal social media debate on immigration blew up in his face.

'Where are you?' Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. 'When are you coming to the 'Center of the Universe,' Mar-a-Lago.'

Trump also claimed that Musk's billionaire rival Bill Gates had asked to visit him on Friday evening.

'We miss you and x!' Trump wrote, presumably referring to Musk's son X Æ A-Xii, known as X. 'New Year's Eve is going to be AMAZING!!! DJT.'

The public post, which was seemingly directed toward Musk, spurred speculation that it was meant to be a private direct message to the billionaire. 

Musk has been a frequent guest of Trump's at Mar-a-Lago since the election, but he was not present for the Trump family's Christmas festivities.

He was last seen with Trump at the Army-Navy football game in Maryland on December 14. 

Since then, Musk blew up a proposed Republican spending deal by criticizing it on X, prompting an uproar in the House of Representatives and nearly shutting down the government. 

Democrats responded by publicly asserting that Musk was the 'real' president who was controlling Trump and Republicans in Congress. 

Trump joked about the controversy during Turning Point USA's AmericaFest.

'No, he's not going to be president, that I can tell you,' Trump said about Musk. 'And I'm safe. You know why he can't be? He wasn't born in this country.'

Musk was born in South Africa.

Trump's latest social media message to Musk took place after the billionaire engaged in a heated conversation about importing skilled foreign tech workers with H1-B visas, claiming it was essential to growing tech companies.

'The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low,' Musk wrote, warning of the 'dire shortage of extremely talented and motivated engineers in America.'

Musk shared several posts on X defending the need for skilled foreign labor.

'There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent. It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley,' he wrote.

Musk asked his followers to consider United States companies trying to recruit the best talent to their organizations as if they were a sports team.

'If you force the world's best talent to play for the other side, America will LOSE. End of story,' he wrote.

But Musk's critics argued that H1-B visas were abused by American companies to bring in foreign workers rather than hire qualified American workers.

Both Trump and his running mate JD Vance have campaigned on the idea of reforming the H1-b visa program to prioritize American workers.

'I know the H1-b very well, it's something I use and I shouldn't be allowed to, we shouldn't have it. Very very bad for workers… it's very bad for our workers and very unfair for our workers and we should end it,' Trump said in 2016.