Elon Musk’s brother, Kimbal Musk, precisely relayed in an interview that Elon (and Kimbal) have been as soon as “unlawful immigrants” within the U.S.
A viral meme circulated within the mid-2010s claiming that South African-born Elon Musk — one of the crucial influential tech entrepreneurs of our time because the founding father of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla — was as soon as, in his brother’s phrases, an “unlawful immigrant” in the US.
This wan’t the primary time Snopes tried to fact-check this declare. In 2016, we explored the notion that Musk’s immigration standing had at one time been “unlawful,” declaring that his pathway from scholar visa to U.S. citizenship in 2002 appeared to occur via varied authorized visa packages and classes.
The declare as soon as once more gained traction on social media platforms like Reddit and Facebook attributable to an outdated interview that resurfaced in 2024, throughout which Musk’s youthful brother, restaurateur Kimbal Musk, talked about their unsure immigration standing whereas recounting the early days of their tech startup Zip2.
For example, on March 8, 2024, an account on Instagram shared the next clip, taken from that 2013 interview with the Musk brothers, by which they touched on their prior U.S. immigration standing:
However was Elon Musk ever really an undocumented immigrant within the U.S., or is there extra nuance to this story?
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(Elon Musk/X)
Nonetheless, on Sept. 29, 2024, Musk adopted up that tweet with another post that many interpreted as anti-migrant, by which he claimed that “the Biden/Harris administration has been flying ‘asylum seekers’, who’re fast-tracked to citizenship, straight into swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Arizona. It’s a surefire option to win each election. America then turns into a one-party state and Democracy is over. The one ‘elections’ would be the Democratic Celebration primaries. This already occurred in California a few years in the past, following the 1986 amnesty.” That put up had been seen greater than 103 million occasions, as of this writing.
Snopes reexamined the declare about Musk being a former undocumented immigrant,
The Origin of the ‘Unlawful’ Declare
This declare appeared to stem primarily from the 2013 interview in the course of the Milken Institute Global Conference, by which Elon Musk and his brother spoke about their early days as budding entrepreneurs within the U.S. In that interview, Kimbal Musk recalled varied enterprise capitalists they met in 1996 (earlier than Elon graduated from the College of Pennsylvania), saying that “once they [venture capitalists] did fund us, they realized that we have been unlawful immigrants.” Elon Musk laughed and corrected him, saying it was extra of a “grey space.”
This doubtlessly tongue-in-cheek response fed into the narrative that Elon Musk was an undocumented immigrant throughout his early years within the U.S., significantly between 1995 and 1997 — earlier than he turned a U.S. citizen in 2002. A better have a look at the timeline paints a extra difficult image.
The Proof: Musk’s Immigration Timeline
Elon Musk was born in South Africa in 1971. He moved to Canada in 1989, after securing Canadian citizenship via his mom, mannequin and dietitian Maye Musk, who was born in Regina, Canada. This was Musk’s first step towards authorized immigration to North America.
In 1992, Musk transferred from Queen’s College in Ontario, Canada, to the College of Pennsylvania (UPenn) in Philadelphia. Whereas a number of reviews state that Musk enrolled in UPenn beneath a scholar visa, these reviews don’t state what sort of scholar visa he was granted. Papaya Global claimed he arrived within the U.S. beneath an F-1 overseas scholar visa, however that is unconfirmed. No matter scholar visa Musk was granted to attend college within the U.S. was the primary documented authorized authorization that he held to dwell within the states.
It is price noting right here that beneath the Privacy Act of 1974, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Companies doesn’t share or focus on private immigration details about U.S. residents and lawful everlasting residents attributable to privateness issues, and the knowledge we do have about Musk’s pathway to citizenship primarily comes from his personal statements to the media. We reached out to Musk for clarification relating to his immigration timeline, however didn’t obtain a response, as of this writing.
Throughout his time at UPenn, it is unclear whether or not Musk engaged in Optionally available Sensible Coaching (OPT), a short lived work authorization usually granted to worldwide college students within the U.S. Though Musk didn’t graduate till 1997 (incomes two bachelor’s degrees, in physics and economics), no clear documentation proves whether or not he had OPT throughout this era.
Musk gave the keynote deal with on the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) competition in 2013, discussing how he gained his H-1B visa, a short lived nonimmigrant authorized work authorization that allows U.S. corporations to make use of extremely expert overseas professionals in specialty occupations, after finishing their research. Nonetheless, he did not point out when he obtained the H-1B:
“I got here out to Silicon Valley to do a Ph.D. at Stanford [University in 1995], in utilized physics and materials science to work on ultracapacitors to be used in electrical vehicles. And that is what I used to be going to do, after which I made a decision to place that on maintain to begin an organization. However since I already had my undergrad, I might then get a H-1B visa and that kinda factor. So, the H-1B visa requires a level. However apart from that, if that wasn’t the case, I most likely would’ve stopped schooling sooner.”
Beneath is a snippet of the longer interview from SXSW, shared to X in 2022.
The 2 Musk brothers based Zip2 in 1995, previous to Elon Musk graduating from UPenn and the identical 12 months he was to start attending Stanford, and it is doable he was at the moment already on his H-1B visa, an employment-based, nonimmigrant visa, which might have allowed him to work legally within the U.S. as a specialty employee previous to citizenship. Whereas he later turned a U.S. citizen, his earlier authorized standing throughout his time within the U.S. has not been absolutely clarified.
A number of sources have indicated Musk could have been granted an EB-5 visa, which supplies everlasting resident standing to overseas buyers, however this isn’t formally confirmed.
Misinterpretation and the ‘Grey Space’
The “unlawful immigrant” narrative largely stems from Kimbal Musk’s feedback in 2013. Nonetheless, it seems these remarks might have been hyperbolic. Authorized grey areas can generally exist with nonimmigrant short-term visas, particularly if there have been administrative gaps between visa statuses, however there is no such thing as a concrete proof to help the declare that Elon Musk was unlawfully residing within the U.S. throughout this era.
Musk’s development via lawful Canadian citizenship, U.S. scholar visas, and employment-visa techniques appears to have adopted a legit authorized course of. The questioning of his pathway to U.S. citizenship possible comes from the complexity of the U.S. immigration system, particularly for high-skilled staff on short-term visas.
Since Snopes’ preliminary fact-check in 2016, there was continued curiosity in Musk’s immigration standing, significantly with the resurgence of this meme. An up to date assessment and newer sources additional affirm that whereas Musk’s immigration standing could have been difficult at sure factors, there is no such thing as a credible proof to label him as having been an “unlawful immigrant,” in his brother’s phrases.
In sum, the declare that Elon Musk was as soon as an “unlawful immigrant” within the U.S. is unproven. Whereas Musk did joke about being in a “grey space” relating to his immigration standing, the out there proof means that he adopted a authorized path via scholar visas and H-1B short-term employment visas. There is no such thing as a credible proof that he was ever absolutely “unlawful” throughout his greater than three a long time within the U.S.
We proceed to observe this story for any further documentation or insights into his early visa standing, and we are going to replace this text as extra data turns into out there.
Snopes’ archives contributed to this report.
