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Trump backer Elon Musk became an entrepreneur as an illegal immigrant, here's how: Report
The venture capital firm which invested $3 million into Zip2 required Musk to get legal work status within 45 days and its board members were worried of this
Elon Musk had worked illegally in the US on a student visa when he became an entrepreneur, building Zip2 after ditching his Stanford program according to a report by The Washington Post which cited former business associates, court records and company documents.
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This is in contrast to Musk becoming one of Donald Trump’s biggest donors and campaign supporters, amplifying Trump's claims that “open borders” and undocumented immigrants are destroying America. He even made allegations against Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats of “importing voters.”
Musk's founding of Zip2 and selling it for about $300 million in 1999 was the stepping stone to Tesla and his other companies which made him the world’s wealthiest person. He went on to find X.com (The same name he revived to rename Twitter) which became PayPal. eBay bought PayPal which earned Musk about $176 million which he used to make bets on Tesla and SpaceX.
His net worth is currently $277 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which is a huge jump compared to Amazon's Jeff Bezos who came second at $211 billion.
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However, foreign students cannot legally drop out and build a company, the report quoted former Justice Department immigration litigator Leon Fresco as saying.
The situation was such that venture capital firm Mohr Davidow Ventures which invested $3 million into Zip2 required Musk and his brother Kimbal to get a legal work status within 45 days, or the firm reclaims its investment. Zip2's board members were even worried of this matter.
“We don’t want our founder being deported,” the report quoted Derek Proudian, a Zip2 board member who later became chief executive as having said. “We want to take care of this long before there’s anything that could screw up” the company’s path to an initial public offering (IPO), Proudian added.
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