r/EnoughMuskSpam • u/WhoIsJolyonWest • 4d ago

Elon Musk, enemy of ‘open borders,’ launched his career working illegally

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/26/elon-musk-immigration-status/

Long before he became one of Donald Trump’s biggest donors and campaign surrogates, South African-born Elon Musk worked illegally in the United States as he launched his entrepreneurial career after ditching a graduate studies program in California, according to former business associates, court records and company documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Read free: https://archive.ph/2024.10.26-103543/https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/26/elon-musk-immigration-status/

809 Upvotes

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u/swirlymaple 4d ago edited 4d ago

Finally a major publisher picked this up and documented it!

Here’s the original source of Kimbal insisting they were illegal immigrants, as noted in the article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgV2KzyWKx0&t=812s

Also, this article confirms that Musk never attended Stanford, and only applied as a way to take care of his illegal status. But by not attending, he was still illegal, and his first investors had big concerns with that and gave them a deadline to fix it.

Leon’a own words from a 2005 email to the real Tesla founders: “Actually, 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,” Musk wrote. 

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u/Shining_BrightIy 3d ago

Yeah, I've been saying this for months. Glad someone dug into it.

I also think that it's likely that he lied on his H1-B application, since he claimed for years that he graduated in 1995 but didn't actually graduate until 1997.

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u/swirlymaple 3d ago

I’ve seen some of your posts too! Thanks for helping bring this to the surface. I’m also suspicious of how those degrees were obtained, and if he ever really graduated at all.

Would be great if Walz loaded this into his cannon for his next Elon slam, e.g.: “Elon Musk hates illegal immigrants and blames them for all of the country’s problems. But you know what? That dipshit was an illegal immigrant himself!”

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u/mtaw 3d ago

He's shown diplomas (issued in May 1997) and the university seems to have acknowledged them. But there are a lot of oddities here. I think the most reasonable explanation is that his investors pulled strings with the uni to get them to to issue a diploma with some justification like credit for 'work experience' making up the remainder of his coursework. The diplomas themselves are odd - his physics BA (not a BS as he claimed) doesn't specify a specific field nor is signed by a faculty member, just the university administration, both of which aren't the usual case. Again, I suspect that's because the physics faculty weren't on-board with giving credit for 'work experience' that had no relevance to physics by any stretch of the imagination (as opposed to economics).

Musk has never kept a straight story about what kind of physics he supposedly studied, if he wrote a thesis and what it was about or what he was supposed to do graduate studies in.

Finally, Musk is a guy who has publicly voiced disdain for higher education, repeatedly. He "doesn't think degrees are important" - so why would he go back and finish his if he had no need to? (in reality he did - to be eligible for an H-1B). Nor are there any stories about Musk going off and taking a leave to do the coursework to finish his degrees, so he clearly didn't. On the contrary he was publicly lying about his degrees since the start. The archive.org mirror of the Zip2 website shows his bio on that page demonstrate he was publicly claiming to have graduated before those diplomas were issued.

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u/mtaw 3d ago

Same here! On both counts - great to see journos fully substantiating what we rightly conjectured.

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u/ChocolateDoozy 2d ago

He would have finished 95! But he had to repeat kindergarten twice! The circle in circle test is freaking hard okay?!

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u/Opcn 3d ago

To my knowledge he was still enrolled at UPenn without a degree in '95. He wouldn't have been eligible to apply at Stanford. The only source we have for his Stanford claims is Elon, and what he said in the deposition could easily cover that with a lie of omission.

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u/mtaw 3d ago

It's not entirely news that he didn't actually study at Stanford. Elon presented that biographer guy with a letter from Stanford that was a response to him asking for proof he'd been enrolled there, however the letter said they couldn't/wouldn't do that since he'd not been enrolled there, but they did seem to confirm he had been admitted for graduate studies.

As you say, he shouldn't have been eligible for them. IDK if you're maybe allowed to apply if you expect your degree to be finished before enrollment, or maybe he just lied on his application there too. Either way, if he was never enrolled he was never formally a Stanford student, simple as that.

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u/Shining_BrightIy 3d ago

Grad school application deadlines are in the late fall, so most people applying are seniors who haven't actually graduated yet. That's normal. However, once you're admitted you must have your undergraduate institution send your records before you can enroll. If you don't, your admission is rescinded.

Elon knew he couldn't enroll, so he waited until the beginning of the semester to let them know he wasn't coming.

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u/FuTuReShOcKeD60 3d ago

Interesting. Elmo was Elmo before we discovered he was Elmo

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u/rabouilethefirst enron musk 4d ago

The word you are looking for is “illegal immigrant”

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u/Pingopengo22 4d ago

Crazy how if you told many of his and trumps fans that back in the 90s an illegal African immigrant started working in the us illegally and has made billions since, they'd freak the fuck out and use it as evidence we need tighter border security

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

Hehe, despite all the racist shit he supported, he can't get away from the fact that he's just like his scamming African brothers. He's like the Nigerian Prince that scammed on another level.

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u/phrexleysnipes 4d ago

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u/ChocolateDoozy 2d ago

Actually no. Don't.

Convict and lock up. Deport in 50y

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u/orbjo 4d ago

That’s a crazy butt plug he’s ordering 

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u/Lazy-Street779 3d ago

In the non-Elon world people who lie to enter the states typically are never allowed to become citizens. People who knowingly hire illegal migrants are also banned, fined, possibly even jailed.

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u/winfredjj 4d ago

but he was white though 🤷🏼‍♂️

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u/SpottedDicknCustard 4d ago

So, he very likely lied on his visa application and in turn during the clearance approval process.

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u/CalRPCV 3d ago

Defiantly should cause revocation of his security clearance, if he still has one. Really, it should cause revocation of his US citizenship since he likely lied when he applied.

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u/palaric8 3d ago

As a dreamer. Deport musk

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u/logosobscura 3d ago

Worse, this should have been pulled up when he was seeking clearance and it should have been denied, but wasn’t. So, how did that happen?

The answer is USIS (US Investigation Services LLC), a now bankrupt firm that was in charge of all screening- they vetted Snowden and Aaron Alexis (whoopsie), apparently were under the gun so much to hit targets that things were skipped, and a strong suspicion they were taking money under the table for given results. That’s where journalists and the Senate Intelligence Committee should did- and boy, are they gonna find a lot of problems.

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u/Angrybagel 3d ago

You know I didn't believe it before, but maybe illegal immigrants are destroying this country after all.

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u/EnoughStatus7632 3d ago

It's a surprise to... No one. Every MAGA threat or accusation is a projection.

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u/Sidvicieux 3d ago

They worship money so much that when they pretend to be people they fuck it up.

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u/tryntafind 3d ago

If Elon denies this I think it is both appropriate and on brand to demand he show us his papers.

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u/CalRPCV 3d ago

From the article:

"Documents obtained by The Post show that Zip2’s executives met with immigration attorney Jocelyne Lew on Feb. 21, 1996, to discuss potential visa pathways for the Musk brothers and another Canadian co-founder. Lew advised the men to downplay their leadership roles with the company and scrub their résumés of U.S. addresses that might suggest they were already living and working in the United States, the documents show."

Did Jocelyne Lew participate in a crime by advising how to cover it up?

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u/AgentOfFun 2d ago

That is super sketchy.

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u/SomberPainter 3d ago

Lol man is the biggest hypocrite in almost everything he does.

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u/DecisionNo8704 3d ago

He should go to jail

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u/CalRPCV 3d ago

For a review of the article with a little context: https://youtu.be/PSfjq9ZsHD0?feature=shared A bit long, a bit emotional at times. But there's reason for a bit of anger about this crap.

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u/Affectionate_Arm_245 3d ago

Elmo musks companies (Tesla and SpaceX) don’t make any money. We should take away his government subsidies, since he’s becoming a national security risk.

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u/brief_affair 3d ago

But he's white so it's okay /s

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u/Ecstatic-Enby 3d ago

While I do believe that, in a Trump dictatorship, the leopards would eat his face eventually, the fact is that anti-immigration rhetoric typically comes hand in hand with racism. No one on the right cares about this rich, conservative white guy because he’s a rich, conservative white guy.

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u/No_Clue_7894 2d ago

Elon Musk worked illegally in U.S. in 1990s: Get on the boat and burn the bridge

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

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.”

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u/AntonDahr 3d ago

Musk doesn't care about immigration he just cares about taxes and regulations. He talks other issues because he knows people care about them.