Q&A of the Day – Was Elon Musk an Illegal Immigrant?

Q&A of the Day – Was Elon Musk an Illegal Immigrant? 

Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.      

Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com     

Social: @brianmuddradio    

iHeartRadio: Use the Talkback feature – the microphone button on our station’s page in the iHeart app.       

Today’s Entry: Submitted via Talkback from questioning Elon Musk’s background with the H-1B visa program and current support of it.  

Bottom Line: With the Trump administration set to take the reins in under two weeks the debate over the validity of the H-1B visa program continues to take place. Last week in the story Do we still need H-1B Visas, I broke down the nuts and bolts of the program including this significant factoid:  

There are an estimated 3 million H-1B recipients within the US currently. Of them, ICE has estimated 39.4% have overstayed their visa’s and thus are illegal immigrants. It’s a rather remarkable revelation that effectively four out of every ten recipients of the program seemingly go on to abuse it. On the surface that would seem to suggest that perhaps major overhauls of the program should take place if not the outright elimination of it.  

However, as I also discussed: Given the demands in many specialized fields there are bound to be shortages of Americans capable of performing key work at companies like Tesla and SpaceX. There are many reasons why it’s important to attract and grow talent in these areas. If there are shortages of aerospace engineers in the US for example, should we just throw our hands up in the air and let China and Russia gain the upper hand on space exploration and related technologies which are a matter of national defense?  

And that led to me offering up this summation: My view is that the H-1B visa program is no different than any other immigration related laws. We should enforce them. Just as we should deport all illegal border crossers in this country, we should also deport all visa overstays as well. That would restore integrity and credibility to the program and would curb illegal immigration at the same time. The program isn’t the problem, the lack of enforcement of those who abuse it is.    

My suggestion would seemingly address at least part of the concern voiced in today’s Q&A. The H-1B visa law is no different than any other law. It’s only as good as the enforcement of it happens to be and clearly with over 39% of the recipients illegally overstaying their visas, the enforcement isn’t there. But then again, with the Biden administration's reluctance to even deport criminal illegal immigrants in this country it certainly isn’t a surprise that visa overstays aren’t resulting in deportations. But there’s yet another layer to this onion as Elon Musk is set to lead DOGE under the Trump administration and is already using his influence in support of keeping the current visa program in place. Did Elon Musk come to the US on an H-1B visa, and did he abuse the system illegally as well when he came here? 

Following Elon Musk’s colorful defense of the program on X in which he stated: The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B... He was accused of illegally abusing an H-1B visa when he came to the US in the 90's. So, is this true? Not exactly.  

As I covered last week, the H-1B visa program was only expanded to include students in 2004. Elon Musk came to the United States in 1992 to study at the University of Pennsylvania under a J-1 visa. J-1 visas are according to CIS: authorized for those who intend to participate in an approved program for the purpose of teaching, instructing or lecturing, studying, observing, conducting research, consulting, demonstrating special skills, receiving training, or to receive graduate medical education or training. 

He then was set to transfer to Stanford for graduate studies under the J-1. Instead, Elon applied for an H-1B visa, dropped out of school, and founded his first company Zip2investors, a company he later sold for $300 million, in 1995. Elon eventually became a US citizen in 2002. There’s no indication that he illegally overstayed an H-1B visa. What there is, is a strong likelihood that he was illegally within the US for a short time between visas.  

Under the terms of the J-1 visa, if the conditions under which a person is in the US are no longer happening (in Elon’s case, no longer a student), a person is to return to their home country. There’s no indication this took place, and Elon when questioned about it long before the current controversy, called it a legal ‘grey’ area. But the bottom line is this...unless Elon made a seamless transition from the J-1 visa to H-1B visa (which is in theory possible though unlikely), anytime he would have remained in the country between those two visas would have been time spent here illegally.  

As always there are two sides to stories and one side to facts. Those are the facts...that Elon didn’t overstay an H-1B visa but potentially did overstay a J-1 visa which isn’t a visa program that’s been a subject of debate in the leadup to the incoming administration. 


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