President Joe Biden calls for Tesla SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, now a Republican megadonor and Trump campaign surrogate, on Saturday accused Musk of hypocrisy on immigration, saying Musk began his long career in the United States as an “illegal worker” before becoming the world’s richest man. career.
The president made the remarks at a pro-Democratic campaign event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.
Biden called Musk a wealthy new “ally” of former President Donald Trump, saying “the richest man in the world, during his time here, turned out to be an illegal worker here,” he said. It’s Musk.
“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 was talking about all these ‘illegal immigrants’ coming to us,” Biden added.
He then criticized Trump and Republicans for failing to sign legislation to address “border issues.” He added, “We now have fewer people crossing the border illegally — or crossing the border illegally — than at any time in his third year as president of the United States.”
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on Biden’s remarks.
Musk recently completed a series of “town hall” events in the same swing state of Pennsylvania as he tried to persuade voters to support Trump and Trump’s policies. Musk also galvanized his fan base by giving away $1 million in lottery-style prizes to registered voters in battleground states who signed petitions distributed by his pro-Trump group, American Political Action Committee.
according to a Analysis through Trump’s new immigration policy proposals include plans to carry out the largest deportations in U.S. history, end birthright citizenship, revoke visas and deport foreign students for pro-Palestinian protesters, according to a report by the Peterson Institute for International Economics Departure, etc.
Biden’s comments about Musk, his Trump coalition and hypocrisy on immigration come after The Washington Post reports quoting letters, legal records Many people helped Musk obtain a work visa in 1996, when he was already working here without one.
In the mid-1990s, Musk arrived in the United States and expressed his intention to attend graduate school at Stanford University. Instead of attending the program he said he was accepted into, he began building a venture-backed startup called Zip2 with his brother.
The Washington Post wrote that investors in Musk’s first company feared their “founder would be deported and gave him a deadline to obtain a work visa.”
Zip2 sells for approx. In 1999, Elon Musk received a $300 million windfall to become an early investor and chairman of Tesla and launch his capital-intensive aerospace company SpaceX, which is now a major U.S. defense contractor.
These businesses have propelled Musk to become the richest man on paper in the world. According to Forbes, the Tesla CEO’s net worth is approximately $274 billion today.
At the end of 2022, Musk used this huge wealth to acquire the social network Twitter for US$44 billion.
On the platform, since changing its name to
He also shared the false claim that non-citizens systematically vote in U.S. elections, Conspiracy theories advanced by conservative groups If Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidency, it would create a legal basis for challenging the election results.
In the United States, it is already a federal crime for a non-citizen to register or vote in a federal election and is a crime under every state’s law.
According to research compiled by the Brennan Center for Justice, “extensive research Investigations show that fraud is rare, voter impersonation is almost non-existent, and many instances of alleged fraud are actually the fault of voters or management. for Mail-in ballotwhich is safe and critical to holding safe elections during the coronavirus pandemic.
— CNBC’s Rebecca Picciotto contributed to this report.
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