President Joe Biden on Saturday accused Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and now a Republican mega-donor and Trump campaign surrogate, of hypocrisy on immigration, criticizing Musk. said he began his long career in the United States as an “undocumented worker” before becoming the world’s richest man.
The president made the remarks Saturday at a Democratic campaign event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Biden labeled Musk a new wealthy “ally” of former President Donald Trump, referring to Musk and saying, “The richest man in the world was an illegal worker here when he was here.” It turned out that it was.”
Biden added, “When he came on a student visa, he was supposed to be in school. He wasn’t in school. He was breaking the law. He said all these ‘illegals’ They say they are coming to us,” he added.
He also criticized Trump and the Republican Party for not signing legislation to resolve the “border issue.” He added: “Fewer people are illegally crossing or crossing the border now than at any time since the third year of his presidency.”
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on Biden’s remarks.
Mr. Musk recently concluded a series of “town hall” events in the same battleground state of Pennsylvania, trying to persuade voters to support Mr. Trump and his policies. Musk also galvanized his local fan base by giving away $1 million in lottery-style prizes to registered voters in battleground states who signed petitions distributed by Trump’s pro-Trump group America PAC.
According to an analysis by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, President Trump’s new immigration policy proposals include the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, the abolition of birthright citizenship, and the revocation of visas for international students participating in pro-Palestinian protests. This includes deportation. .
Biden’s comments about Musk, his alliance with Trump, and hypocrisy on immigration followed a Washington Post report that Musk was working without a work visa in 1996. It cites letters, legal records, and multiple people who helped obtain work visas in 1996.
Mr. Musk arrived in the United States in the mid-90s with the stated intention of attending graduate school at Stanford University. He didn’t enroll in the program he said he had been accepted into, and instead started building a venture-backed startup called Zip2 with his brother.
The Washington Post wrote that investors in Musk’s first company were concerned that “the founder would be deported” and gave him a deadline to obtain a work visa.
Zip2 was sold in 1999 for about $300 million, allowing Elon Musk to later become an early investor and chairman of Tesla and launch SpaceX, a capital-intensive aerospace venture. SpaceX is currently a major defense contractor in the United States.
These businesses have allowed Musk to become, on paper, the richest person in the world. According to Forbes, the Tesla CEO’s net worth is currently around $274 billion.
In late 2022, Musk used his vast wealth to buy the social network Twitter for $44 billion.
Since rebranding X, Musk has repeatedly claimed in posts viewed by his vast online fanbase that “open borders” and illegal immigration are somehow harming the United States. .
He also shared the false claim that noncitizens are systematically voting in U.S. elections, which could lead to Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris contesting the election results if she wins the presidential election. This is a conspiracy theory advocated by conservative groups in order to build a legal basis for their claims.
In the United States, it is already a federal crime for noncitizens to register or vote in federal elections, and each state’s laws make it a crime as well.
According to a study compiled by the Brennan Center for Justice, “extensive research has shown that fraud is extremely rare, voter impersonation is virtually non-existent, and many instances of alleged fraud actually involve voter fraud.” The same is true for mail-in ballots, which are safe and essential to conducting a safe election amid the coronavirus pandemic. ”
—CNBC’s Rebecca Picciotto contributed to this report.
