Martin Neiman

Elon, I’m still not done with you. You like to talk about illegal immigration. Let’s talk about how you got here. In 1995, Eggman arrived in California supposedly to attend Stanford University. Fun fact, he never enrolled. Instead, he started building the company that became Zip2. According to a 2024 Washington Post investigation, former business associates, company documents, and immigration experts raised serious questions about whether Musk had proper authorization to work in the United States. By 1996, his investors were concerned enough to give him and his cofounders 45 days to obtain legal work authorization or risk having their investment reclaimed. There’s more. In a 2005 email obtained by The Washington Post, Musk acknowledged that he had applied to Stanford partly because he had no legal right to remain in the United States. His own goddamn words. Someone hurry and tell Trump. And it gets even better. In a 2013 interview, his brother Kimbal publicly described the two as illegal immigrants during those early years. The response? Elon called it a “gray area.” A gray area. The fuck? How convenient for him. He’s since denied working illegally, claiming he held a J-1 visa that transitioned to an H-1B work visa. But he hasn’t publicly established when that transition happened. I guess we’re supposed to take his word for it. The reporting, the investors’ concerns, and your own words, along with your brother’s, raise some serious questions. How about some fucking answers? Now I’m curious Eggman. And I’m especially curious about your cult members. Would you extend that same loose ass “gray area” interpretation of immigration law to a hardworking Latino father of three building the infrastructure this country depends on? A man who maybe risked his life to come here looking for an opportunity, worked his fucking ass off, paid his bills, and tried to build something better for his family? Would you call his circumstances a gray area? Would you defend his ambition? Would you argue that his contributions to America deserve consideration? Or would he be another illegal immigrant who needs to be rounded up by masked agents and deported? Because apparently immigration law becomes a fascinating philosophical exercise when the immigrant turns out to be a rich kid from South Africa. That’s what makes this so insulting. Not the failure to be woke. It’s the hypocrisy. Millions of ordinary people work themselves to exhaustion trying to build a life. They raise families, start businesses, pay taxes, and contribute to our communities from sunup to sundown. I’ve worked with many of them in construction, listened to their stories of braving a journey from Honduras, only to get to America and hide under trailers from authorities before eventually finding work. Inspiring shit I thought. Who the fuck am I to cast shade? Yet somehow, the same circumstances that invite voracious suspicion and hateful condemnation when we’re talking about some ordinary immigrant become entrepreneurial ambition when we’re talking about Elon Musk. I’m not arguing that your past should automatically disqualify you from anything Eggman. I’m asking a simple question. Would you extend the same consideration to somebody without your money, influence, or political connections? Do you people seriously think the law should become more forgiving as your bank account gets larger? Or should the American dream be available to people who aren’t already rich? Funny how the gray area becomes a crime when someone poorer walks across it.