Elon Musk’s Immigration “Gray Area”: Billionaire Allegedly Lived and Worked Illegally in the U.S. During Early Career

A new report from The Washington Post is shedding light on an unexpected chapter in Elon Musk’s rise to success: allegations that the billionaire lived and worked in the U.S. illegally during the early days of his career. According to the report, Musk co-founded his first American tech company, Zip2, without the appropriate work authorization, despite being in the country on a student visa.

Musk, now the wealthiest person in the world and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, reportedly planned to enroll in a PhD program at Stanford University in 1995 to obtain a student visa. However, he dropped out just days before classes were set to start, invalidating his visa and his right to legally work in the U.S. Instead of returning to Canada or South Africa, Musk went on to co-found Zip2, a startup that would eventually be sold for nearly $300 million.

Musk himself has referred to this period as a “gray area” regarding his immigration status. His brother, Kimbal Musk, went so far as to call them both “illegal immigrants” in a 2013 interview, acknowledging the lack of proper work authorization during that time. Legal experts consulted by The Washington Post suggested that Musk’s activities, including working on Zip2’s code and pitching to potential investors, likely violated U.S. immigration law.

“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,” DOJ immigration litigator Leon Fresco told The Post, implying that Musk’s involvement in Zip2 while on an invalid visa would have constituted unauthorized work.

At the time, Musk’s immigration status was reportedly an issue of concern for some of Zip2’s early investors. Derek Proudian, a former board member at Zip2, recalled that he and other investors questioned whether Musk was legally allowed to be running a company in the U.S.

“Their immigration status was not what it should be for them to be legally employed running a company in the U.S.,” Proudian told The Post, emphasizing that Musk and his brother faced scrutiny for operating in Silicon Valley without the appropriate documentation.

It’s unclear how Musk eventually resolved these immigration complications, but legal experts say that any admission of overstaying his visa or working without authorization could have impacted his future visa and citizenship applications. Nonetheless, Musk was eventually able to secure proper documentation, paving the way for his meteoric rise in the tech industry.

Fast forward nearly three decades, and Musk has undergone a dramatic shift in his stance on immigration. Now a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump, Musk has made illegal immigration one of his top concerns, even pouring millions of dollars into Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. In recent months, Musk has personally amplified conspiracy theories around immigrants from Haiti and Venezuela and voiced support for Trump’s controversial mass deportation plans, which critics have described as “inhumane.”

Musk’s outspoken views have also included calls for militarized actions to curb illegal immigration, statements that many see as extreme given his own past. Critics argue that Musk’s past makes him an unlikely spokesperson for strict immigration policies, especially since his success story was built on finding loopholes in the very system he now wants to enforce.