He paid $11B in taxes in 2022, from what I could find. I don't see the US activity working to give that up, which would also send his multiple companies, some of which the government regularly does contracts with, to some other country. If they were to revoke it, I'm sure it would be a technicality and they'd give it right back to him.
The law is the law. He has no right to not be subject to the same laws as you or I. If we’ve done the same to other immigrants, it’s only fair that once the authorities are made aware of it that they investigate. No one should be able to buy themselves a carve out from the law. If the precedent is that nothing has really done about it in the past then do that as well, but no reason he should be above the law.
I dont think citizenship has ever been taken away from another immigrant 30 years after the fact for working on a student visa.
There have only been a several hundred denaturalized immigrants in the history of the US, and they were for things like false identity with outstanding deportation orders.
> No one should be able to buy themselves a carve out from the law
Yet this is the reality as far back as I can remember. The gravity of that much wealth inevitably distorts the fabric of the legal system.
We've seen stuff like this play out over and over again among rich politicians, celebrities, CEOs etc. We also see it with wealthy businesses that cynically violate the law based on a favorable cost benefit analysis, not to mention their pervasive lobbying that literally defines the law. Even among the less affluent classes, we still see a stratification in practical impunity to break the law since e.g. it's a lot more tempting to speed if a speeding ticket is as trivial as a plane ticket. In our system, everything has a price.
However, if Musk was an illegal immigrant (yes, violating the terms of your visa is illegal, and it's the most common form of illegal immigration) I do think Musk's hypocrisy is quite disgusting. I can admit that if he were more humble and respectful of the immigrant experience he shares with those he maligns, I would be more sympathetic to him.
True, no way he gets deported but it's kind of ironic given him going on about the need to deport other illegal immigrants. I think the moral is US immigration is a mess and needs an overhaul.
> don't see the US activity working to give that up
It’s the law. Which means it’s an option. My takeaway is the law should be amended to include a statute of limitations. (More broadly, I'm not thrilled about how comfortable both parties have become around talking of stripping citizenship.)
Sure. Did they (or anyone) say they were going to strip Musk of citizenship? (al_borland's original claim was specifically about Musk's citizenship, not citizenship in general.)
No, nobody real is talking about taking Musk’s citizenship. Hell, he hasn’t even lost his security clearance. Those are granted on the basis of executive order. It’s at the pleasure of the President. Nobody is going after Musk.
A nonzero number of illegal immigrants do vote. I don’t know if there is data on how often (my guess is it is rare). But when it is caught, the vote remains counted.
As for descendants, they vote mostly for democrats. I don’t have a source on hand but I’m sure it is easy to find. You can also look at data by ethnicity instead of immigration status to get an idea. Also this skews other parts of the political process, outside of the presidency.
This hypothesis has been tested. Lots of people have spent a lot of time and money on it. We have zero examples. The only voter fraud we have found is right wing idiots who don’t understand the electoral college.
Believing in voter fraud is not quite flat Earth stupid. But it’s close.
> As for descendants, they vote mostly for democrats
Racial depolarisation is the term you’re looking for. Young single men vote Trump. Also, whose donors do you think hire illegal workers? Who pushes back on strict liability for employers?
> Believing in voter fraud is not quite flat Earth stupid. But it’s close.
Blind faith is more like “flat Earth” to me. Does it make sense to have such confidence about every election on the planet? Or is America on a pedestal? Those other countries probably make the same claims about their alleged election integrity.
> Also, whose donors do you think hire illegal workers? Who pushes back on strict liability for employers?
I would ask to share your sources but why is this even relevant? Voter ID now. Closed borders now. Deportation for illegal immigrants now. No one buys the weird excuses conjured up by untrustworthy politicians and activists on this issue, not even them. It is clear who this status quo favors.
N != 0, it’s less than 1/10^8 over multiple cycles. Which means zero examples in modern America of a national election being stolen through fraud.
> Blind faith
To the degree there is blind faith in this discussion it’s from the election deniers. Polls are heavily scrutinised by not only multiple layers of government, but also various outside groups, including the campaigns, as well as international bodies. One has to assume widespread conspiracy across those groups—and then be too lazy to observe a poll oneself—to conclude fraud. Not only forward looking, but worse, backward looking given the millions of dollars spent on hand recounting ballots in e.g. Arizona.
> Voter ID now
I vote in a state with a voter ID requirement. Maybe those who think these laws do something didn’t go to college. I can’t think of any other reason for the widespread amnesia around the prevalence and accessibility of fake IDs. (And you could vote with a cheap one, too. Nobody checks if they scan.)
> Closed borders now. Deportation for illegal immigrants now
About as relevant to election security as abortion and speed limits.
Re citizenship I would agree. Denaturalization is rare. The visa as a lesser issue compared to having Vlad as a chat buddy while owning Xitter. There are two problems with that: Not filing disclosure immediately gets your clearance yanked. Secondly, it could bring in FARA requirements, which is also incompatible with having a clearance.
Maybe they are just following Musk recommendation: "People who entered the country illegally should not be allowed to stay" - https://youtu.be/ZMQ2r3ofn80?t=3
He entered legally. He had a valid student visa. The allegation is that he worked while on his student visa, which is a restriction that does not really make sense anyways.
Regardless, the point about stopping illegal immigration is that we want skilled workers who contribute to society to stay, and we want to know who is entering so you don’t have bad actors like cartel members or CCP spies coming in. Obviously, Elon Musk has contributed more than virtually every other American and is a good actor.
> Even if USCIS had solid evidence that Musk had broken the law, it would, experts say, not handle the matter administratively, but rather could refer it to a US attorney’s office. Prosecutors, who have broad discretion to take up or decline cases, could then proceed, or not, as they saw fit.
Most US attorneys were appointed by Biden. So if they take this case up, it will be another obvious example of authoritarian lawfare.
Im not a right winger, but I think Musk has done more good for America than any other citizen in living memory. His work with Tesla advanced EV adoption in the US by many years and has also made grid scale battery storage a reality. SpaceX helped the US regain our lead in space infrastructure and brought internet to millions.
IF not for Musk, there would be a million more gas cars on the road, our grid would use more carbon, and we would probably still be launching our astronauts on Russian rockets.
I don’t think that anyone who says following up on a coup attempt and constant attempts to overturn a presidential election as “law fare” is going to be open to your arguments. All one merely has to look at how many people around T went to jail for him, and somehow he managed to offload responsibility to them.
> Authoritarian lawfare? You mean against the guy who literally tried to steal the last election?
Who are you responding to? OP referred to Biden as a purveyor of authoritarian lawfare. Which, given the term is flexibly defined, is both true for everyone and always falsifiable.
It's a stupid statement that follows an otherwise mostly thougtful comment. (Negating the "obviously...Musk...is a good actor" bit, but I'm not here to shit on faith.)
Sorry, I was doubling down and responding to blackeyeblitzar's comment. When people refer to Biden enacting "lawfare," it's frequently a right wing talking point used to discredit Jack Smith's cases against Trump.
I strongly agree. Feds make examples of companies all the time, I don’t know why we would not do the same with a billionaire. I’m sure -many- hardworking people have been kicked out of the country for going against terms of their work/student/visitor visa, I don’t know why EM should be treated different. I thought justice was supposed to be blind.
Do you have any numbers on how many people have lost their citizenship for working on a student visa? Has it ever happened in the history of the USA?
Per this report, an average of 11 people are denaturalized per year, and it is reserved for terrorists and war criminals [1]
Why does everyone want to jump to conclusions about special treatment in the total absence of data? It is starting with the injustice one thinks is happening and presuming facts that make it true.
>Historically, the U.S. has reserved denaturalization proceedings for individuals who committed egregious crimes, including people who were found to be war criminals and terrorist funders. The most notable of those cases involved Nazi war criminals. For example, the federal government pursued and obtained the denaturalization of John (Ivan) Kalymon of Troy, Michigan in 2007 and his removal in 2011.
The disguising part is that he’s rubbing this in our faces while simultaneously relishing his party’s hardline stance on illegal immigration. He knows he’s above the law. He does not care about what the plebs think.
Why? Wealth is just what people are given by others through transactions. Shouldn’t the person be able to use it how they wish? I doubt Elon’s wealth was a problem for one half of the country when he voted for Biden a few years ago.
Also do you not see examples of those who aren’t wealthy breaking law or precedent or decorum? For example rampant retail and property crime in coastal cities. Or the mass rioting and destruction at the height of BLM. Or anti Israel terrorists blocking airports. Or the mass robbery of a freight train a week ago in Chicago. You can also find extreme rhetoric very easily in social media that supports the things you called out for “the other side”.
There is a much longer list of examples. The finger pointing around wealth doesn’t make sense to me. And if anything, Musk is doing far better than those attacking him.
Reddit turned on Musk as soon as he started nearing the top of the Forbes list. They rooted for him to be successful, and when he was, they hated him for it. The reductionist, "rich == bad", thinking on Reddit was one of the many things that drove me away from the site.
> want to censor the news, force companies to hire unqualified people for the sake of "equity", lock up politicians they do not like, and of course anyone who disagrees with them gets labeled, doxed, or even worse, etc, etc.
You’re cherry picking extreme policies that aren’t backed by most Americans, nor even a major plurality of either major party.
> over 50% of Democrats polled said that they were disappointed that the shooter failed
Partisanship drives stupidity. 70% of Republicans don’t believe the last election [1]. A fifth explicitly back violent insurrection [2]. We have a republic, not pure democracy, because the Founders weren’t idiots.
To be fair to the parent post, being a self proclaimed anti-fascists isn't a position held by most Americans. It seems they mean "anti-fascist" in terms of identity and ideology (aka antifa), not just holding the general sentiment that fascism is bad.
In my experience, there is significant cross over between antifa and communists seeking a dictatorship of the proletariat. That said, I agree the policies listed are more than your typical authoritarianism.
> there is significant cross over between antifa and communists seeking a dictatorship of the proletariat
Sure. But again: there is a significant crossover between Democrats and lefties who want to strip an American of their citizenship as well as between Republicans and jackbooters who support violent insurrection against an elected government.
Every human being holds at least one incredibly stupid opinion. My self included. "There is an idiot in that room" isn't a novel nor damning observation about any group. Because it's true about every group.
I totally agree. I wish people spent half as much time examining their own positions for coherence and hypocrisy as they spent examining those of their political opponents.
Are others violating this law having such an outsized influence on U.S. politics? Here, you have an illegal immigrant who has built multiple companies on the backs of billions of dollars of taxpayer money and uses it to spread misinformation, and you don't see a problem with that? It's basically terrorism.
I'm no fan of Musk. However, building companies is generally considered to be a good thing. Doing it with taxpayer money is only bad if it's somehow fraudulent - if you make a company and get a government contract and you actually fulfill that contract, that's neutral or good.
Spreading misinformation is definitely bad, but I don't think I'd class it as terrorism.
Regardless, I don't see any chance of the US throwing Musk out.
He immigrated legally. The issue is that he did some work while he was on a student visa, which is a dumb minor technicality if it is even true. It’s not the outright illegal immigration that is enabled by one party, which is a far bigger influence on US politics.
> who has built multiple companies on the backs of billions of dollars of taxpayer money
Taxpayers got way more than they expected. Obviously.
> and uses it to spread misinformation
Musk has done more to restore free speech than anyone else in years and that is a threat to you. So now come labels like “misinformation”.
Calling that a border bill is a bit dishonest. It was a $118 billion bill with only $20B in funding for border security, with restrictions on immigration that wouldn't even trigger until 5000 people each day (i.e. most border crossers) had been processed the same way they are processed now.
How many other immigrants are deported for working on a student visa?
Is there even one other example in the history of the US of one being denaturalized 30 years after the fact?
Your sentiment would make sense if these things were widely enforce and Musk was an exception, but that simply isn't the case.
You mean like abusing the law to try and overturn legitimate elections? Lawyers are going to lawyer, all you have to do is be willing to pay them. It goes in the inverse when you use your powers as executive to stop investigations into your own alleged wrong doing vs. someone who likely let his son get the worst possible treatment from a DoJ for his crimes and refusing to give clemency or pardoning. I think that all says a lot about this particular take on “lawfare”
Bad laws are weaponised by both sides. The problem is bad laws. Not Trump threatening to arrest his enemies under 18th-century sedition laws or Biden having the theoretical power to denaturalise Musk.
Also, Musk maintains a security clearance—an instrument granted at the pleasure of the President—so it’s a bit silly to be conspiracy theorising about denaturalisation.
I'm genuinely curious, can you cite a few examples of the Republicans weaponizing the law against Democrats? If they exist I'd like to know about them.
> Trump threatening to arrest his enemies under 18th-century sedition laws
Are you referring to his proposal to deport illegal immigrants? It's quite a stretch to compare that to prosecuting political opponents.
It's also not arrest, it's simply sending them to their original homes.
> can you cite a few examples of the Republicans weaponizing the law against Democrats?
Every corrupt county clerk and fake elector scheme in the last election. Currently, Virginia striking voters from the rolls last minute [1]. Under Trump, conditioning disaster aid on politics [2].
> Are you referring to his proposal to deport illegal immigrants?
No, to his "enemy within" proposals and promise to prosecute his political opponents [3].
