The newspaper says Musk worked illegally in the United States for a short time in the 1990s

South African-born billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk worked illegally in the United States in the 1990s while building a startup company. The Washington Post Saturday (27)

Musk, who disputed the report on Sunday (28), said he was allowed to work legally in the US during this period. “I was on a J-1 visa that turned into an H1-B,” he said on his X social media site.

The J-1 exchange visitor visa allows foreign students to pursue academic training in the United States, while the H1-B visa is for temporary employment.

The newspaper reported that Musk came to Palo Alto, California, in 1995 to attend Stanford University, but did not enroll in the graduate program. Instead, he created a software company called Zip2, which sold for $300 million in 1999, according to the outlet.

Two immigration legal experts cited by the Post said Musk would need to attend full-time to maintain a valid student work permit.

In a 2020 podcast quoted in the report, Musk said: “I was there legally, but I had to be a student. I was given permission to work in support of anything.

The The Washington Post Musk cited two former colleagues who recalled that he received his U.S. work permit in 1997.

Musk has backed Republican US presidential nominee Donald Trump in the November 5 election, in which the former president faces Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in what polls show is a tight race.

For years, Trump has portrayed immigrants as invaders and criminals, and during his presidency, between 2017 and 2021, he took tough measures to curb legal and illegal immigration. If elected, he has promised the largest deportation effort in US history.