A viral meme circulated in the mid-2010s claiming that South African-born Elon Musk — one of the most influential tech entrepreneurs of our time as the founder of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla — was once, in his brother's words, an "illegal immigrant" in the United States.
This wan't the first time Snopes attempted to fact-check this claim. In 2016, we explored the notion that Musk's immigration status had at one time been "illegal," pointing out that his pathway from student visa to U.S. citizenship in 2002 appeared to happen through various legal visa programs and categories.
The claim once again gained traction on social media platforms like Reddit and Facebook due to an old interview that resurfaced in 2024, during which Musk's younger brother, restaurateur Kimbal Musk, mentioned their uncertain immigration status while recounting the early days of their tech startup Zip2.
For instance, on March 8, 2024, an account on Instagram shared the following clip, taken from that 2013 interview with the Musk brothers, in which they touched on their prior U.S. immigration status:
But was Elon Musk ever truly an undocumented immigrant in the U.S., or is there more nuance to this story?
N
(Elon Musk/X)
However, on Sept. 29, 2024, Musk followed up that tweet with another post that many interpreted as anti-migrant, in which he claimed that "the Biden/Harris administration has been flying 'asylum seekers', who are fast-tracked to citizenship, directly into swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Arizona. It is a surefire way to win every election. America then becomes a one-party state and Democracy is over. The only 'elections' will be the Democratic Party primaries. This already happened in California many years ago, following the 1986 amnesty." That post had been viewed more than 103 million times, as of this writing.
Snopes reexamined the claim about Musk being a former undocumented immigrant,
The Origin of the 'Illegal' Claim
This claim seemed to stem primarily from the 2013 interview during the Milken Institute Global Conference, in which Elon Musk and his brother spoke about their early days as budding entrepreneurs in the U.S. In that interview, Kimbal Musk recalled various venture capitalists they met in 1996 (before Elon graduated from the University of Pennsylvania), saying that "when they [venture capitalists] did fund us, they realized that we were illegal immigrants." Elon Musk laughed and corrected him, saying it was more of a "gray area."
This potentially tongue-in-cheek response fed into the narrative that Elon Musk was an undocumented immigrant during his early years in the U.S., particularly between 1995 and 1997 — before he became a U.S. citizen in 2002. A closer look at the timeline paints a more complicated picture.
The Evidence: Musk's Immigration Timeline
Elon Musk was born in South Africa in 1971. He moved to Canada in 1989, after securing Canadian citizenship through his mother, model and dietitian Maye Musk, who was born in Regina, Canada. This was Musk's first step toward legal immigration to North America.
In 1992, Musk transferred from Queen's University in Ontario, Canada, to the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) in Philadelphia. While multiple reports state that Musk enrolled in UPenn under a student visa, those reports do not state what type of student visa he was granted. Papaya Global claimed he arrived in the U.S. under an F-1 foreign student visa, but this is unconfirmed. Whatever student visa Musk was granted to attend school in the U.S. was the first documented legal authorization that he held to live in the states.
It's worth noting here that under the Privacy Act of 1974, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services does not share or discuss personal immigration information about U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents due to privacy considerations, and the information we do have about Musk's pathway to citizenship primarily comes from his own statements to the media. We reached out to Musk for clarification regarding his immigration timeline, but did not receive a response, as of this writing.
During his time at UPenn, it's unclear whether Musk engaged in Optional Practical Training (OPT), a temporary work authorization often granted to international students in the U.S. Although Musk did not graduate until 1997 (earning two bachelor's degrees, in physics and economics), no clear documentation proves whether he had OPT during this period.
Musk gave the keynote address at the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in 2013, discussing how he gained his H-1B visa, a temporary nonimmigrant legal work authorization that permits U.S. companies to employ highly skilled foreign professionals in specialty occupations, after completing their studies. However, he didn't mention when he obtained the H-1B:
"I came out to Silicon Valley to do a Ph.D. at Stanford [University in 1995], in applied physics and material science to work on ultracapacitors for use in electric cars. And that's what I was going to do, and then I decided to put that on hold to start a company. But since I already had my undergrad, I could then get a H-1B visa and that kinda thing. So, the H-1B visa requires a degree. But other than that, if that wasn't the case, I probably would've stopped education sooner."
Below is a snippet of the longer interview from SXSW, shared to X in 2022.
The two Musk brothers founded Zip2 in 1995, prior to Elon Musk graduating from UPenn and the same year he was to begin attending Stanford, and it's possible he was at this time already on his H-1B visa, an employment-based, nonimmigrant visa, which would have allowed him to work legally in the U.S. as a specialty worker prior to citizenship. While he later became a U.S. citizen, his previous legal status during his time in the U.S. has not been fully clarified.
Several sources have indicated Musk may have been granted an EB-5 visa, which gives permanent resident status to foreign investors, but this is not officially confirmed.
Misinterpretation and the 'Gray Area'
The "illegal immigrant" narrative largely stems from Kimbal Musk's comments in 2013. However, it appears these remarks could have been hyperbolic. Legal gray areas can sometimes exist with nonimmigrant temporary visas, especially if there were administrative gaps between visa statuses, but there is no concrete evidence to support the claim that Elon Musk was unlawfully residing in the U.S. during this period.
Musk's progression through lawful Canadian citizenship, U.S. student visas, and employment-visa systems seems to have followed a legitimate legal process. The questioning of his pathway to U.S. citizenship likely comes from the complexity of the U.S. immigration system, especially for high-skilled workers on temporary visas.
Since Snopes' initial fact-check in 2016, there has been continued interest in Musk's immigration status, particularly with the resurgence of this meme. An updated review and newer sources further confirm that while Musk's immigration status may have been complicated at certain points, there is no credible evidence to label him as having been an "illegal immigrant," in his brother's words.
In sum, the claim that Elon Musk was once an "illegal immigrant" in the U.S. is unproven. While Musk did joke about being in a "gray area" regarding his immigration status, the available evidence suggests that he followed a legal path through student visas and H-1B temporary employment visas. There is no credible evidence that he was ever fully "illegal" during his more than three decades in the U.S.
We continue to monitor this story for any additional documentation or insights into his early visa status, and we will update this article as more information becomes available.
Snopes' archives contributed to this report.