Elon Musk claims that he was allowed to work in the US at the beginning of his career

Top line

Billionaire Elon Musk sharply criticized the Washington Post. report claiming the Trump ally “started his career illegally” in the United States early Sunday morning, saying on his social media platform X that he had two visas and was “actually allowed to work” – after President Joe Biden criticized Musk for this a revelation.

The Washington Post reported that Elon Musk worked illegally in the US at the beginning of his career … (+) Musk now denies it.

Key facts

Musk, who was the first to be born in Pretoria, South Africa he replied to the Washington Post article that he was allowed to work on Sunday at 12:40 p.m., and added: “Biden’s puppet is lying.”

In second overnight fast on X, formerly known as Twitter, Musk explained that he “holds a J-1 visa, which has been changed to H1-B.”

AND J-1 visa is intended for individuals “approved to participate in a work-study-based guest exchange program” and H1-B is a temporary work visa.

The response came after Biden addressed the report at a Democratic campaign event in Pennsylvania on Saturday. saying Musk – who has been a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump in recent months – “turned out to be an undocumented worker while he was here… He was supposed to be at school when he came on a student visa. He wasn’t at school. He violated the law.”

Forbes has reached out to Musk and The Washington Post for comment.

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News Peg

The Washington Post Office said Saturday that Musk did not have the right to work in the U.S. when he created Zip2, a business directory software company that was sold 25 years ago for about $300 million. Musk had planned to attend graduate school at Stanford University in 1995, but The Post reported that just two days into the semester he told the school he would not attend, which legal experts said meant he would have to leave the country. In a 2005 email obtained by the Post, Musk admitted that he “didn’t really care much about getting a degree” but “didn’t have money for a lab or the right to legally stay in the country.” Derek Proudian, a Zip2 board member who later became the company’s CEO, told the newspaper that Musk and his brother Kimbal’s “immigration status is not what it needs to be for them to legally work running a company in the U.S.” he said at the beginning of their business, his immigration status was a “gray area,” although his brother said they were both “illegal immigrants.”

Key background

Musk has previously said that he is “extremely pro-immigration” and had previously advocated that the United States “let in anyone… who is hard-working and honest and will contribute.” However, Musk has become an increasingly vocal critic of the US immigration system. Bloomberg News reported that Musk is now the biggest promoter of anti-immigration conspiracies on X – the social media platform he bought in 2022 – where about 1,300 of his posts focused on immigration and voter fraud. Musk repeated Trump’s baseless claims that Democrats are trying to trick undocumented immigrants into voting illegally, and supported his other debunked claims by reposting memes around Trump’s claim that Haitian immigrants in Ohio eat human animals.

Forbes valuation

Forbes estimates Musk’s net worth as of Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. was approximately $274.7 billion, making him the richest person in the world.

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Key background

Forbes valuation

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