The CEO of a popular U.S.gaming brand on Thursday was appointed to a high-level Federal Reserve task force despite ongoing fury over her company's recent firing of 1,600 workers while being approved to hire thousands of foreign visa workers.Asha Sharma, who heads Microsoft's XBOX division, announced the layoffs earlier this week.
Microsoft said that it will lay off 4,800 people in total, while it had been approved earlier this year to hire 2,273 foreign H-1B visa employees, according to data from U.S.Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS).At the height of the wrath over the layoffs this week, the Federal Reserve moved forward with appointing Sharma to a newly-created advisory role within the central bank.FURY ERUPTS AS US BRAND FIRES 1,600 EMPLOYEES AFTER SECURING THOUSANDS OF FOREIGN WORKER VISASAsha Sharma, chief executive officer of Xbox,, during the Bloomberg Tech conference in San Francisco, California, US, on Thursday, June 4, 2026.
The event brings together the leading CEOs, investors and innovators who are harnessing technology to change the world around us.(David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)Sharma will serve on a task force on "Productivity and Jobs" alongside Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreeson and Stanford University economics professor Charles I.
Jones."The Federal Reserve's commitment to price stability and maximum employment is unwavering.As is our resolve to pursue our mandate with rigor," said new Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh in a statement on the appointments."Each task force will carefully consider whether policymakers' means and methods, analytical tools and policy approaches can be improved upon," he continued.
"I am honored that the best minds from a range of disciplines have agreed to work with us to sharpen our performance as an institution."Many of the same critics who raged at Sharma, XBOX and Microsoft over the perceived replacement of American employees with foreign visa workers continued their tirades ...