President Trump’s Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Lee Zeldin traveled to West Virginia this week to promote the new $4 billion Nucor Steel facility in the town of Apple Grove, WV (population 187).
As seen in the video below, Zeldin reported: “Visited a brand new, state of the art $4 BILLION Nucor Steel facility yesterday in West Virginia where ground has been broken and cranes are everywhere. The investments pouring into the US right now have been massive and we are just getting started.”
Zeldin said the new facility will be “a world’s best steel manufacturer that’s going to not just be producing all of the jobs for this area but [also have] tens of billions of dollars of an impact.”
Visited a brand new, state of the art $4 BILLION Nucor Steel facility yesterday in West Virginia where ground has been broken and cranes are everywhere. The investments pouring into the US right now have been massive and we are just getting started. pic.twitter.com/c67k0B508w
— Lee Zeldin (@epaleezeldin) November 13, 2025
Zeldin also mentioned that Japanese automaker Toyota is “investing in a massive expansion” of their West Virginia battery manufacturing site. Zeldin said of the Toyota facility: “They’ll be relying on Nucor Steel.”
In April, Toyota North America, Inc. announced an additional investment of $88 million in its Buffalo, West Virginia plant to assemble the next generation of hybrid transaxles, “a crucial component in electrified vehicles that transfers power seamlessly between the engine, electric motor and wheels.”
Many MAGA supporters are responding to Zeldin’s report with skepticism after President Trump earlier this week said the U.S. doesn’t have enough talent to work in some work environments, specifically battery manufacturing factories — and that foreign talent was needed to train Americans.
One replied to the Nucor groundbreaking: “How many H1B and H2B will be working there?” Another wrote: “The money can flow in, and the jobs must be staffed with Americans, NOT H1B. H1B must end. Employ Americans first.”
(The Trump administration, in a nod to the prevailing MAGA sentiment on foreign workers, recently changed the H-1B rules to put a $100,000 price tag on the visas for foreign workers to work in America.)
Note: Toyota Motor North America filed 94 applications for H-1B visas between fiscal years 2022 and 2024. In 2024, the average salary for a Toyota employee with a H-1B visa was $138,197. As of August, in fiscal year 2025, Toyota Motor North America filed nine petitions for H-1B visas — all nine were approved.