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- White House now says $100K H-1B fee not annual, says it applies only to new visas
White House now says $100K H-1B fee not annual, says it applies only to new visas
Bay Area Times
September 22, 2025
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Top stories today:
- White House now says $100K H-1B fee not annual
- Elon’s xAI unveils Grok 4 Fast, cheaper alternative to Grok 4
- TikTok deal to be signed in “coming days”: White House
- Neuralink plans Oct. speech trial
- Trump said to link Tylenol to autism risk, announcement eyed Mon.
0. Data and calendar
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All times are ET.
Listen to our AI-generated podcast summarizing today’s newsletter (beware of hallucinations):
1. White House now says $100K H-1B fee not annual, says it applies only to new visas
India and China have received the most H-1B visas so far:
The 1-time fee applies only to the petition, White House Press Secy. Karoline Leavitt posted on X.
H-1B visa holders currently outside of the U.S. “will NOT be charged $100,000 to re-enter,” she said.
“H-1B visa holders can leave and re-enter the country to the same extent as they normally would,” Leavitt wrote.
Will 1st apply in the next upcoming lottery cycle, she said.
Amazon, TCS, Microsoft, Meta, and Apple are among the heaviest H-1B visa users
India’s $280B IT sector is facing upheaval from H-1B visa curbs.
European and Indian stocks dipped after the visa crackdown announced.
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3. Elon’s xAI unveils Grok 4 Fast, cheaper alternative to Grok 4
Grok 4 Fast is in line with Gemini 2.5 Pro and Claude 4.1 Opus on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index:
Based on a unified architecture with “reasoning” and “non-reasoning” support.
Available to all users through the Grok chatbot in Fast and Auto modes.
Can be accessed for free through OpenRouter and Vercel AI Gateway (for a limited time).
Grok 4 Fast is the smartest AI for its price category
Grok 4 Fast costs $0.20/$0.50 per 1M tokens vs. Grok 4’s $3/$15 and Gemini 2.5 Pro’s $1.25/$10.
The new model has surpassed Grok 3 Mini and OpenAI’s GPT-5 Mini across benchmarks shared by xAI
4. TikTok deal to be signed in “coming days,” includes U.S. algorithm control: White House
