A shocking report has revealed that South African-born billionaire businessman Elon Musk is suspected of working illegally in the United States for a short period of time while founding a start-up company in the 1990s.
The Washington Post reported on Saturday that Musk came to Palo Alto, California, in 1995 to study at Stanford University, but did not enroll in the graduate program. Instead, he focused on developing Zip2, a software company that was eventually sold in 1999 for about $300 million.
Two immigration law experts interviewed by the newspaper suggested that as a student, Musk would have needed to enroll in the full course to maintain a valid work permit.
Leon Fresco, a former immigration litigator at the Justice Department, said international students are prohibited from leaving their studies to start a business “even if they don’t immediately receive a paycheck.” He explained to the Post that engaging in activities that contribute to revenue generation, such as coding or trying to sell, could lead to legal consequences for these students.
“If you’re doing things that drive revenue generation, like designing code or trying to sell to drive revenue generation, you’re in trouble,” Fresco told the Post. Ta.
Musk did not respond to requests for comment sent to SpaceX, Tesla, social media company X and The Boring Company, nor did his attorney Alex Spiro.
“I was there legally, but I was going to do student work. I was allowed to do work that supported anything,” Musk said in a 2020 podcast cited by the paper. Ta.
According to the Washington Post, two of Musk’s former co-workers recall that he received work authorization in the United States around 1997.
Musk has publicly supported Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in the upcoming US presidential election on November 5th. During his presidential term from 2017 to 2021, Trump consistently portrayed immigrants as invaders and criminals and took strict measures to restrict both legal and illegal immigration. If re-elected, he has vowed to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history.
