Elon Musk hates illegal immigrants, but according to his brother he used to be one

double standard

Billionaire Elon Musk has become a staunch opponent of illegal immigrants, using his considerable number of followers on X, the social network he owns, formerly called Twitter, to spread openly. racist conspiracy theorists and much other misinformation on the subject.

But there is an uncomfortable truth that stands out, as cnn reported last month: As his own younger brother once claimed, Musk may have once been an illegal immigrant.

During an April 2013 conference in California, Kimbal Musk recalled how his and his brother’s startup secured a $3 million investment from venture capitalists.

“When they funded us, they realized we were illegal immigrants,” Kimbal Musk said at the time.

His brother intervened, stating that “it was a gray area” without elaborating. Last time we checked, it didn’t seem like a clear-cut case of legal immigration.

anti-immigrant song

Many questions remain about Musk and his brother’s visas when they founded the companies. The couple moved to Palo Alto, California in 1995.

As cnn As he points out, two separate biographies of Musk’s life claim that investors helped the two obtain the correct visas, suggesting they were once raising funds without proper legal documentation. One possibility is that Musk launched Zip2, one of the first online mapping companies, on a student visa, which typically comes with limitations on the amount of work that can be done off campus.

Musk became a full US citizen in 2002, but the steps that led to that point remain hazy at best. He previously called the process a “laborious Kafkaesque nightmare” and reclaimed that it was “extremely difficult.”

You would think that would give him some empathy for immigrants now caught up in the vagaries of the immigration process, but instead, it’s threw all his weight behind former President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, and his willingness to welcome others to the United States has seemingly withered.

Last month, he shared racist misinformation to support Trump’s absurd claim that Haitian immigrants were “eating pets.” He has also joined other conservative pundits in accusing immigrants of being “cannibals” and therefore should not be allowed to move to the United States.

In fact, as Bloomberg reported Today, Musk has become one of the biggest promoters of anti-immigrant conspiracies on X, formerly Twitter. Many of these often racist statements are not accompanied by community notes, indicating that their lies are being spread on the platform largely unchecked.

It’s a sad situation, indicative of a massive double standard. Despite Musk’s personal difficulties in obtaining citizenship in the US, he has now clearly decided to close the door behind him.

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