Billionaire owner of social media network X, Elon Musk, is an advocate for “citizen journalism” and encourages “people around the world to post news about events as they’re happening.” To demonstrate how it works, in September he livestreamed his visit to the U.S. southern border in Eagle Pass, Texas, where Musk said he traveled to get an “unfiltered view of migration.”
In October, Musk transitioned from journalist to opinion writer as he remarked that video of German NGOs helping migrants on the Mediterranean had “invasion vibes.”
Citizen journalism is the path to better future!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 4, 2023
I strongly encourage people around the world to post news about events as they’re happening, in both text & video. https://t.co/c8PxqinKAm
This week Musk made a clarification for those who misunderstand his views on immigration, announcing that he’s “very much PRO increasing legal immigration significantly. I’m not anti-immigration, I’m just against a massive number of unvetted people flooding into America, which any rational person should be.”
In the early 1990’s, @elonmusk remember when I would drop you off at Toronto airport? Passport control wouldn’t let you into the USA because you were Canadian and had forgotten your pink slip, which verified you as a student at the University of Pennsylvania. I had to pick you… https://t.co/INPmjxzIAc
— Maye Musk (@mayemusk) February 4, 2024
Musk’s mother, Canadian-born professional model Maye Musk, replied to her son’s announcement with memories of the Toronto Airport in the 1990s, “when I would drop you off… and Passport control wouldn’t let you into the USA because you were Canadian and had forgotten your pink slip, which verified you as a student at the University of Pennsylvania.”
[Note: Musk, who was born and raised in South Africa, applied for a Canadian passport through his Canadian-born mother, knowing that it would be “easier to immigrate to the United States this way,” according to Esquire.]
Ms. Musk reminded her son: “I had to pick you up, take you back to my apartment, and return you to the airport with that pink slip.” She also lamented that Elon’s two siblings weren’t able to visit him while he was studying in the U.S. “because they had Canadian passports, too.”
I couldn’t get US citizenship even though my father and grandmother were born in Minnesota, and my grandfather, John Elon Haldeman, was born in Illinois. I was born in Canada so it took me 12 years through visas, green card, lawyer and numerous medical tests. That’s how hard it… https://t.co/YYFBqnpeBJ pic.twitter.com/PNP0KQmbv3
— Maye Musk (@mayemusk) February 4, 2024
According to Ms. Musk, when the family moved to the U.S. “as immigrants” they had to “pay lawyers and wait 9-12 years to become citizens.” She asserts that “now young and old can walk into America illegally, and receive numerous benefits which we pay for. Any other legal immigrants think this isn’t fair?”
