Elon Musk rarely talks about the specifics of his personal immigration experience.
But the billionaire tech tycoon opened up about some of it over the weekend in a series of posts on the platform he owns, X, hours after theWashington Post reportedthat Musk began his careerworking illegally in the USwhen he was building a Silicon Valley startup in the 1990s.
According to the newspaper’s narrative, investors were concerned that Musk would be deported, citing court papers, corporate documents, and former business associates, including a former CEO of the company.
CNN contacted Musk for comment on the allegation, but Musk has not replied. Additionally, he has not answered CNN’s questions on comments he made characterizing his previous legal status as a murky area.
Musk denied working without permission in a post on X where a video of President Biden citing the Washington Post report’s allegations went viral.
Musk accused Biden of lying in his letter, saying, “I was in fact allowed to work in the US.”
Biden’s comments and the newspaper’s report went viral among Musk’s detractors, who accused the richest man in the world of applying a double standard because of how much time he has spent criticizing illegal immigration in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election.
Musk’s supporters, such as Tesla fan accounts, quickly defended him and attacked Biden.
Musk provided more information on two visas he once held in response to one of these posts than he had previously disclosed to the public.
Musk stated, “I was on a J-1 visa that changed to an H1-B.” They have all of my records, so they are aware of this. They’re desperate after losing the election.
However, experts told CNN that such details create more questions that Musk hasn’t addressed.
Foreign students can use the J-1 visa to pursue academic training or research, as it is intended for exchange visitors. It needs a program that sponsors it, like a university. AnH-1Bis a temporary employment visa for specialty occupations.
Why Musk s student status matters
Musk didn t detail what institution sponsored his J-1 visa,or which years he had the visa.
Musk was born in South Africa, obtained Canadian citizenship through his mother and came to the US to study at the University of Pennsylvania in 1992. He became a US citizen a decade later, according to biographies of the billionaire.
He has said in the past that after leaving Penn he had planned to pursue graduate studies at Stanford, butdropped outto work on founding his first company.
According to experts, this is important because there are stringent regulations regarding the types of work that are permitted while a person is in the United States on a student visa. Additionally, work authorizations associated with student visas typically require that the student be enrolled in classes or that the sponsoring institution permit the student to receive academic or practical training following graduation.
Immigration attorney Greg Siskind, who s co-authored multiple editions of a guide to J-1 visas, says transitioning from a J-1 visa to an H-1B visa is a possible path. But he says a J-1 visa wouldn t provide work authorization to someone who dropped out of a degree program. The moment Musk dropped out, he would have lost his status and been unauthorized to work, Siskind says.
Musk would have needed to be engaged in a full course of study (at least 12 academic hours a semester) in order to qualify for work while being a J-1 student, Siskindwrote on X.
A Stanford spokeswoman told CNN last month that the university had no record Musk had ever enrolled there, but that he had been accepted into the school s Materials Science and Engineering graduate program. Asked if Musk ever had a student visa connected with the university, the spokeswoman said she did not know because further documentation was unavailable.
What if Musk s visa was obtained through the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied as an undergraduate?
The same criteria would apply, Siskind says.
And given Musk s background, Siskind says it s unlikely he would have been eligible for humanitarian exceptions sometimes granted to allow off-campus work due to economic hardship.
Atlanta immigration attorney Charles Kuck says Musk stating that he had a J-1 visa makes it clear he worked illegally, given therestrictionsthat would have only allowed work in connection with his academic program.
So clearly, he s admitting now that in fact, he did work illegally and violate his status. The only question is at that point, what did he do to fix his status violation? Kuck says.
Working illegally isn t a crime, Kuck says, but having done so would require certain steps to be taken to return to a legal immigration status.
Key unanswered questions, Kuck says, are what steps Musk took to get his H-1B visa, and when that occurred.
Musk graduated from Penn in May 1997, according to a university spokesman. Biographies of the SpaceX and Tesla CEO indicate he finished his studies there in 1995.
According to the Post s report, a 1996 funding agreement with venture capitalists who d agreed to contribute $3 million to Musk s first company stated that the Musk brothers and an associate had 45 days to obtain legal work status. Otherwise, the firm could reclaim its investment. Musk had told coworkers that he was in the country on a student visa, six former associates and shareholders in the company told the Post.
Student visas are some of the most complicated visas out there, and work related to them is also extraordinarily complicated. And to dismiss it in a in a two-line tweet, Well I had a J-1 and it went to H-1B, yeah, trust me, there s always a lot more to it than that, Kuck says.
What the world s richest man has said about his immigration journey
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His more than 200 million followers on X frequently see him sharing postsendorsing conspiracy theoriesthat claim the Biden administration has deliberately allowed undocumented immigrants to cross the border to gain political advantage. It s also common to see posts referring to his own background as an immigrant and advocating for increased legal immigration to the US.
In response to details his mother, Maye Musk,has shared on Xabouther own immigration journey, Elon Musk has called legal immigration to the USa laborious Kafkaesque nightmareand noted that becoming a US citizenwas extremely difficultand took over a decade.
But he s offered few specifics about his immigration status in the early days of his career, when he and his brother were founding their early online city guide and mapping tool that was later dubbed Zip2.
His brother, Kimbal Musk, has repeatedly stated that early investors in their company soon learned they were illegal immigrants, but Elon Musk has disputed his brother s characterization.
I d say it was a gray area, Elon Musk said at a 2013 event.
And in a 2020 podcast interview, Elon Musk said he had a student work visa at the time.
Student work visa is not an official term, and experts told CNN last month that it s impossible to know Musk s immigration path without access to the paper trail in his government file.
It s likely regulations weren t enforced as strictly during Musk s time as a student, according to Hunter Swanson, associate director of the Center for International Education at Washington and Lee University in Virginia. Enforcement of student visa restrictions, and thesystems officials use to monitor compliance, intensified dramatically after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, Swanson told CNN earlier this year. Some of thehijackers involvedin the attacks were in the U.S. on student visas, according to the official 9/11 Commission Report.
It definitely wouldn t be possible to do academic training now on a J-1 Visa if you dropped out in your first term, Swanson said in an email Sunday.
What s the importance of digging into Musk s own immigration history?
For me, it s the hypocrisy, Siskind says.He s been fixated on illegal immigration in the last year. And you know, he should be empathetic to the people who are struggling with the immigration system.
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