Biden says Elon Musk was an 'illegal worker' when he began U.S. career

Lora Kolodny
SAT, OCT 26 2024

KEY POINTS

⚫️ President Joe Biden said Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, now a Republican megadonor, launched his long career in the U.S. as an "illegal worker."

⚫️ Biden's comments about Musk followed a Washington Post report that cites correspondence, legal records and multiple people who helped Musk attain a work visa in 1996 after he had already been working here without one.

⚫️ Musk has become a regular campaign surrogate for Donald Trump in the presidential race against Vice President Kamala Harris.

President Joe Biden called out Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, now a Republican megadonor and Trump campaign surrogate, for hypocrisy on immigration on Saturday, saying Musk launched his long career in the U.S. as an "illegal worker" before becoming the world's wealthiest man.

The president made these remarks at a campaign event to support Democrats that took place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.

Labeling Musk as former President Donald Trump's wealthy new "ally," Biden said, "That wealthiest man in the world turned out to be an illegal worker here when he was here," referring to Musk.

"He was supposed to be in school when he came on a student visa. He wasn't in school. He was violating the law. He's talking about all these 'illegals' coming our way," Biden added.

He then criticized Trump and Republicans for failing to sign legislation that would fix "the problem with the border." He added, "We have fewer people crossing the border illegally now — or crossing the border period — than at any time since his third year as President of the United States."

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment on Biden's remarks.

Musk recently completed a series of "town hall" events in the same swing state of Pennsylvania, where he sought to convince voters to back Trump and Trump's policies. Musk also stirred up his fan base there by doling out $1 million lottery-style prizes to registered voters in swing states who signed a petition distributed by his pro-Trump group, America PAC.

According to an analysis by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Trump's new immigration policy proposals include plans for the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, ending birthright citizenship, and revoking the visas of and deporting foreign students who are pro-Palestinian protestors, among others.

Biden's comments about Musk, his Trump alliance and hypocrisy on immigration followed a Washington Post report that cites correspondence, legal records and multiple people who helped Musk attain a work visa in 1996 after he had already been working here without one.

Musk had arrived in the U.S. with the stated intention of attending grad school at Stanford in the mid-90s. He did not enroll in the program to which he said he was accepted and instead began to build a venture-backed startup called Zip2 with his brother.

The Washington Post wrote that investors in Musk's first company worried about their "'founder being deported' and gave him a deadline for obtaining a work visa."

Zip2 sold for about $300 million in 1999, a windfall that enabled Elon Musk to later become an early investor in and chairman of Tesla, and to start his capital-intensive aerospace venture SpaceX, which is now a major U.S. defense contractor.

Those businesses have propelled Musk to become the world's wealthiest person on paper. According to Forbes, the Tesla CEO's net worth stands at around $274 billion today.

In late 2022, Musk used that considerable wealth to acquire the social network Twitter in a $44 billion buyout.

On the platform, since rebranded X, Musk has repeatedly claimed in posts seen by his massive online fan base that "open borders" and undocumented immigrants are somehow harming the United States.

He also has shared the false claim that noncitizens are systematically voting in U.S. elections, a conspiracy theory floated by conservative groups to lay the legal groundwork to contest the election results if the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, wins the presidency.

In the U.S., it's already a federal crime and a crime under every state's laws for noncitizens to register or vote in federal elections.

According to studies compiled by the Brennan Center for Justice, "extensive research reveals that fraud is very rare, voter impersonation is virtually nonexistent, and many instances of alleged fraud are, in fact, mistakes by voters or administrators. The same is true for mail ballots, which are secure and essential to holding a safe election amid the coronavirus pandemic."

— CNBC's Rebecca Picciotto contributed to this report.

Elon Musk worked in US illegally in 1995 after quitting school – report

Washington Post contrasts the episode with the South African multibillionaire’s anti-immigration views

Elon Musk briefly worked illegally in the US after abandoning a graduate studies program in California, according to a Washington Post report that contrasted the episode with the South African multibillionaire’s anti-immigration views.

The boss of Tesla and SpaceX, who has in recent weeks supported Donald Trump’s campaign for a second presidency while promoting the Republican White House nominee’s opposition to “open borders” on his X social media site, has previously maintained that his transition from student to entrepreneur was a “legal grey area”.

But the Washington Post reported Saturday that the world’s wealthiest individual was almost certainly working in the US without correct authorization for a period in 1995 after he dropped out of Stanford University to work on his debut company, Zip2, which sold for about $300m four years later.

Legal experts said foreign students cannot drop out of school to build a company even if they are not getting paid. The Post also noted that – prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks agains the US in 2001 – regulation for student visas was more lax.

“If you do anything that helps to facilitate revenue creation, such as design code or try to make sales in furtherance of revenue creation, then you’re in trouble,” Leon Fresco, a former US justice department immigration litigator, told the outlet.

But the Post also acknowledged: “While overstaying a student visa is somewhat common and officials have at times turned a blind eye to it, it remains illegal.”

Musk has previously said: “I was legally there, but I was meant to be doing student work. I was allowed to do work sort of supporting whatever.”

Musk employs 121,000 people at Tesla, about 13,000 at SpaceX and nearly 3,000 at X. The scrutiny of his immigration status after dropping out of Stanford comes after Trump has touted his desire for Musk to play a high-profile role focused on government efficiency in a second Trump administration if voters return him to office at the expense of Kamala Harris in the 5 November election.

Musk in turn has accused the vice-president and her fellow Democrats of “importing voters” through illegal and temporary protected status immigration. During a recent Trump campaign appearance, he compared the US-Mexico border to a “zombie apocalypse” – even as he had also previously described himself as “extremely pro immigrant, being one myself”.

Bloomberg News recently published an analysis of more than 53,000 posts sent from Musk’s X account, finding that the entrepreneur’s output turned increasingly political this election year.

“In 2024, immigration and voter fraud has become Musk’s most frequently posted and engaged with policy topic, garnering about 10bn views,” the outlet said. “Musk posted more than 1,300 times about the topic overall, with more than 330 posts in the past 2 months alone.”

Bloomberg described Musk – who paid $44bn for X, then Twitter, in 2022 – as the platform’s single most important influencer and has reportedly ordered site engineers to push his posts into users’ feeds. That makes Musk “the most widely read person on the site today”, Bloomberg said.

flyinnizam:
old biden should keep quiet. if Elon Musk was an illegal migrant, he won't be talking about illegal migrants all the time

Menclothing1:
Elon musk an African root richest man in the world he should create jobs in Africa

tishbite42:
This world is wicked
After using a ladder, you destroy it so that others can't

flyinnizam:
old biden should keep quiet. if Elon Musk was an illegal migrant, he won't be talking about illegal migrants all the time