Washington Post reports Elon Musk briefly worked illegally in US in 1990s

South African-born billionaire businessman Elon Musk worked illegally in the US for a short time in the 1990s while building a start-up company, the Washington Post reported on Saturday.

Musk denied the report on Sunday, saying he was allowed to legally work in the US during that time.

“I was on a J-1 visa that transitioned to an H1-B,” he said on his social media platform X.

The J-1 exchange visitor visa allows foreign students to get academic training in the US while the H1-B visa is for temporary employment.

The news outlet reported Musk arrived in Palo Alto, California, in 1995 to attend Stanford University but never enrolled in his graduate studies programme there. Instead, he developed the software company Zip2, which sold in 1999 for around $300m, according to the outlet.

Two immigration law experts quoted by the Post said Musk would have needed to be enrolled in a full course of study to maintain valid work authorisation as a student.

Musk in a 2020 podcast cited by the Post said: “I was legally there, but I was meant to be doing student work. I was allowed to do work sort of supporting whatever.”

The Washington Post cited two former Musk colleagues who recalled him receiving his US work authorisation in or around 1997.

Musk has endorsed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in the November 5 US election in which the former president faces Democratic vice president Kamala Harris in what polls show to be a tight race.

Trump has for years portrayed migrants as invaders and criminals, and during his 2017-2021 presidency took stringent steps to curb legal and illegal migration. He is promising the biggest deportation effort in US history if he is re-elected.

Reuters