Recently, comments by Elon Musk on his immigration journey have shed new light on his rather complicated path toward U.S. citizenship.Born in South Africa, Musk relocated to Canada in 1988 thanks to his mother’s Canadian citizenship. In 1992, he came to the US to study at the University of Pennsylvania. Musk has criticized the U.S. immigration system as a “Kafkaesque nightmare,” but he also claimed that the procedure was challenging because it took him ten years to obtain U.S. citizenship. In any case, the controversy over his comments raises the question among immigration experts whether his immigration periods fell under a “gray area.”
During a 2013 conference, the brothers recalled that due to lack of funds, they both slept at their office as in their early days of their startup Zip2. In reference to those days, Kimbal openly claimed they were “illegal immigrants,” a claim Musk toned down to “a gray area,” without further explanation. Those ambiguous words have left some experts curious about his exact immigration status in those early years. As immigration attorney Charles Kuck explained, “There are no real ‘gray areas’ in immigration law. You are either in compliance or you are not.” Kuck and others believe that Musk may have indeed had brief periods without having full legal status, say due to expired or transition visas during his early efforts at entrepreneurship.
Musk eventually naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 2002, ten years after his arrival in the country as a student. His history remains somewhat unclear with regard to the visas or adjustments he may have used over the course of the 1990s, despite reports of Zip2 investors helping him regularize his status. His story reflects the difficulty many immigrants have in attempting to find their way through some of the harsher laws of U.S. immigration policy while also chasing career dreams.
While Musk is now publically against illegal immigration, the journey he took himself, which is full of many of the ills that face immigrants, seeking the American dream. According to immigration attorneys, the path laid out by Musk shows how there is a need for clearer and more accessible routes for legal immigration, particularly for entrepreneurs, because this process remains an overwhelming obstacle for those who lack enough resources or professional help.
