• By Aditya Jha
  • Sun, 27 Oct 2024 10:18 AM (IST)
  • Source:JND

Business tycoon Elon Musk is accused of working illegally in the United States during a brief period in the 1990s while building a startup company. The South African-born billionaire arrived in Palo Alto, California, in 1995 to attend Stanford University, but he never enrolled there and developed software company Zip2, which he sold in 1999 for around 300 million dollars, the Washington Post reported, citing former business associates, court records, and company documents.

The report emphasised that, as per the rules, Musk could not have dropped out of school to build a company, as overstaying a student visa is common in most cases; however, it still remains illegal, the Post said. The report further suggested that two of Musk's former colleagues also said that Musk received his US work authorisation around 1997. Firm Mohr Davidow Ventures, which invested in Musk's company, asked Musk and his brother Kimbal to clear the legal hurdles within 45 days, or the firm reclaims its investment. Even the board members of Zip2's were worried about this matter. “We don’t want our founder being deported,” the report quoted Derek Proudian, a Zip2 board member.

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The reports are in contrast to what Donald Trump, US presidential candidate whom Musk is supporting, is saying in his election rallies. Trump has claimed that “open borders” and undocumented immigrants are destroying America. Trump has accused Vice President Kamala Harris of “importing voters.”

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However, Musk has not responded to these allegations yet, as the requests for comment were sent to four of his companies: SpaceX, Tesla, the social media company X, and The Boring Company. The WSJ reported that Musk himself in a podcast in 2020 accepted that he was meant to do the student work at that time. "I was legally there, but I was meant to be doing student work. I was allowed to do work sort of supporting whatever," Musk said in the podcast cited by the post.