By Mary Jones and Ben Emos | Wednesday, October 30, 2024 | 2 min read
Elon Musk has long voiced strong anti-immigration views, yet, according to The Washington Post, his own journey as an immigrant entrepreneur was marked by legal irregularities. When Musk arrived in the U.S. from South Africa in 1995, he came to attend a Stanford graduate program but never actually enrolled, instead launching his first startup, Zip2. However, his lack of student enrollment meant he was technically ineligible to stay in the country, let alone work. Legal experts note that because he wasn’t in school, his student visa did not permit work authorization—a significant issue for Musk and his investors at the time.
Musk’s brother, Kimbal, has since admitted that they both worked illegally, despite Musk’s current claims about having had the proper documentation. This past echoes somewhat controversially today as Musk now backs conservative candidates like Donald Trump and promotes anti-immigration rhetoric. Concerns over Musk’s immigration status even impacted early Zip2 investors, who stipulated that the brothers needed to secure legal work authorization within 45 days to avoid deportation risks. Former Zip2 board member Derek Proudian confirmed these anxieties, noting they couldn’t risk the company’s founder facing deportation during the startup’s development.
While Musk has downplayed this part of his history, even mentioning a supposed “student-work visa,” he once acknowledged the tenuousness of his status in a 2005 email to Tesla co-founders, explaining his initial move to Stanford.
In a 2005 email, Elon Musk admitted that his real motivation for enrolling at Stanford was practical rather than academic: he needed access to a lab and a way to remain in the U.S. legally. “I didn’t really care much for the degree, but I had no money for a lab and no legal right to stay in the country, so that seemed like a good way to solve both issues,” he wrote in the email, recently disclosed as part of a California defamation lawsuit.
Musk’s acknowledgment of using his Stanford enrollment as a means to bypass immigration restrictions isn’t, by itself, unusual; many international students face similar limitations. But this backstory contrasts starkly with Musk’s current stance. Today, he’s a vocal advocate for stricter immigration policies and has used his platform to criticize undocumented immigrants and promote restrictive border controls, which many view as hypocritical given his own history of benefiting from a more flexible immigration environment. His own experience highlights the nuanced reality many immigrants face, where staying and working can mean operating in legal gray areas. Musk’s stance on immigration has thus drawn criticism for lacking empathy toward those navigating similar challenges today.
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