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What visas did Lily Yang or Mikhail and Yevgenia Brin enter on? I think there's a fairly sound argument that we should be encouraging those, at least. Elon Mus

by geofft 8y ago

What visas did Lily Yang or Mikhail and Yevgenia Brin enter on? I think there's a fairly sound argument that we should be encouraging those, at least. Elon Musk had Canadian citizenship and moved to Canada in order to enter the US on a student visa, with the goal of getting an H-1B. By the time he founded Tesla he had citizenship but he was certainly not a citizen when founding his first companies. There's no public documentation of what his status was, but it was likely either H-1B or TN. (He may also have overstayed his visa at some point.)

peteradio 8y ago
Well Elon undercut a home grown All American CEO by about $1B and suppressed CEO wages across the board so I don't know why you are so happy about it... \s
pandaman 8y ago
>What visas did Lily Yang or Mikhail and Yevgenia Brin enter on? Not H1-Bs for sure, H1-B was introduced in 1990. As for Musk founding Tesla on H1-B : he founded it by investing his PayPal money in some startup so it's highly unlikely he had been on H1-B at the time (or ever). AFAIK you cannot get H1-B sponsored by a company you own and you have to work for the sponsor to remain in status. So who would have sponsored his hypothetical H1-B in 2003?
- petilon 8y ago
  The exact visa doesn't matter. The point is, without immigration silicon valley wouldn't be silicon valley.
  - pandaman 8y ago
    Then why bring the H1-B, a nonimmigrant visa for temporary workers, up when arguing about benefits of immigration ?
    - petilon 8y ago
      Because people who come in on H-1B are eligible to apply for green cards.
      - pandaman 8y ago
        People who don't come in on H-1Bs are eligible to apply for green cards too. Being on H-1B does not make you eligible in any special way.