For the first time since the allegations of backing Indian candidates depriving Americans surfaced against FedEx in December 2025, CEO Raj Subramaniam broke his silence and said his company is all for meritocracy. A Dallas Express report claimed that FedEx received $2.2 billion federal contract in 2022 and since hired hundreds of foreign workers on H-1B visas. Subramaniam was directly blamed for the move of hiring Indians as reports revealed that after he became the president and CEO of FedEx in 2022, the company’s use of the H-1B visa program increased sharply. Records show that H-1B approvals for FedEx rose from 37 in 2021 to102 in 2025. And this happened while the company conducted several tranche of layoffsIn an interview with The New York Times, Subramanian said he is a believer of legal immigration and that’s very important. “I’m just grateful for the opportunities given to me. It’s very much an American story because I think it’s going to be rare for these kind of stories to happen in other countries. That’s one of the true, great strengths of America,” he said.
“I’m very much a believer in legal immigration, and that’s important.””From a FedEx point of view, we are a meritocracy. We provide opportunities for everybody. I’m one of those examples, but I’m not the only one,” he said.
Hiring bias allegations against FedEx
Federal Express Corporation filed 436 H-1B petitions in fiscal year 2025 linked to its Memphis, Tennessee, operations, resulting in 434 approved beneficiaries, according to data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services H-1B Employer Data Hub.”Team members on H-1B visas make up less than .05% of our US workforce. In 2025, we sought fewer than 100 H-1B visas for new hires. These trends are consistent with our regular employment patterns,” FedEx said adding that its layoffs had nothing to do with its H-1B hiring.
Subramaniam’s immigration story: ‘I still have the $2 bill that I came here with’
59-year-old Subramaniam, the 2nd CEO of FedEx, worked at FedEx all his career. He started as a marketing analyst in the early 1990s. About his journey from India to the US, he said: “At that point in the late ’80s, it was a well-worn path because I went to the Indian Institute of Technology, which was the premier institution in India for undergrad. I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship to come to America. I still have the $2 bill that I came here with.””It was very much a middle class upbringing, in a town called Trivandrum, in the south of India. My dad was a policeman. My mom was a doctor, so education was the ticket, basically,” he said
