By Martin Shwenk Leade
Taking to Truth Social on Monday, the US president shared that the tech mogul may need to ‘close up shop’ and move back to South Africa
US President Donald Trump Tuesday issued a deportation warning for his former advisor Elon Musk after the tech billionaire stepped up his criticism of Trump’s tax cuts and spending bill and renewed his call for a new political party. Trump warned without subsidies from the US government, the Tesla CEO would “probably head back home to South Africa.”Taking to Truth Social on Monday, the US president shared that the tech mogul may need to ‘close up shop’ and move back to South Africa. Trump’s warning comes as amid the feud between him and Musk due to the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’.”Elon Musk knew, long before he so strongly Endorsed me for President, that I was strongly against the EV Mandate. It is ridiculous, and was always a major part of my campaign. Electric cars are fine, but not everyone should be forced to own one. Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.”No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!” he added further. The commander-in-chief also suggested that DOGE, which Musk once led, should now investigate the extent of subsidies flowing to Musk’s companies. This comes after Musk doubled down on his distaste for president Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” calling it “political suicide for the Republican Party.” Musk also threatened to launch a new political party if the bill gets passed in the US Senate.Live EventsALSO READ: Canada Day 2025: Are schools, banks, grocery stores open on July 1? Check full list here Can Trump deport Elon Musk?Last month, Steve Bannon called for Elon Musk to be deported from the United States after the dramatic bust up between the tech billionaire and President Donald Trump. In his War Room podcast Thursday, Trump’s former White House chief strategist from his first term said: “Elon Musk is illegal … Deport immediately.” The validity of Bannon’s claim about Musk’s naturalized U.S. citizen status is now likely to face more scrutiny than ever.Speaking to the New York Times, prominent conservative commentator Bannon said: “They should initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien, and he should be deported from the country immediately.”Bannon later doubled down on this argument during an appearance on his War Room podcast when he said: “Elon Musk is illegal, and he’s got to go. He’s illegal? Deport immediately.””You’re going to ship these other people home. Let’s start with the South Africans, OK?”ALSO READ: Idaho fire shooting: Wess Roley’s shocking past reveals his ‘disturbing’ childhood and pro-Trump ‘extremism’Is Elon Musk an illegal citizen?Born in 1971 in South Africa, Elon Musk became a US citizen after completing naturalization process after several years of living and working in the country. Musk’s mother, Maye Musk, was born a Canadian citizen in Regina, Saskatchewan, so Musk automatically inherited Canadian citizenship by descent. Musk moved to Canada in 1989 and later to the United States in 1992 to attend the University of Pennsylvania. The Washington Post in 2024 published an article claiming that Elon Musk had “previously “worked illegally in the United States”. The report claimed Elon Musk set up a company while on a student visa in 1995, despite never enrolling in Stanford University as promised.The article cited a 2005 email, disclosed during a defamation lawsuit, in which Musk reportedly admitted he applied to Stanford solely because he had “no legal right to stay in the country.”The newspaper reported that Elon Musk used a J-1 student visa to enter the US but instead worked on a startup that became Zip2 without the requisite work visa, citing “former business associates, court records and company documents”.ALSO READ: US job market in trouble? Starbucks, Google, Frito-Lay and more hit with brutal layoffs in JulyCan Elon Musk be deported by Trump?The US law says that citizenship gained through naturalisation can be revoked if it was “procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.” Amanda Frost, a legal expert at the University of Virginia, told NewsWeek: “If a noncitizen violated the terms of a nonimmigrant visa, and then adjusted to immigrant (green card) status without admitting the violation, and then naturalized without admitting the violation, that person could be denaturalized on the ground that their naturalization was ‘illegally procured.”What once started as a ‘big, beautiful” bromance between Elon Musk and Trump turned into an ugly spat that escalated to a point where the Tesla CEO called for Trump’s impeachment. Speaking to Wired about Musk, Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law expert at Cornell Law School, told NewsWeek that if the claims of illegal working are true “on purely legal grounds, this would justify revoking citizenship, because if he had told the truth, he would not have been eligible for an H1-B, a green card, or naturalization.”Neama Rahmani, president of West Coast Trial lawyers, stated that in practice it would be tough for the Trump administration to strip Musk of his U.S. citizenship.ALSO READ: ‘Does Trump want Zohran Mamdani deported?’: White House’s explosive reaction will leave you stunned”It would be difficult for the Trump administration to deport Musk as a naturalized United States citizen,” he said. “The only path involves the legal process of denaturalization. This requires the government to prove an applicant lied or committed fraud in their application or during the naturalization process so they can revoke their citizenship. After that, the person reverts to their previous citizenship status, and they can be deported. But this rarely happens.”Even if there is some evidence of fraud, it has to be ‘willful’ and ‘material.’ In other words, it has to be intentional and have a direct impact on the decision to grant citizenship. This is a high bar, and innocent misstatements or minor omissions are not enough.”Judges are generally hesitant to strip someone of their citizenship. Denaturalization has historically been used for egregious cases, like Nazis hiding their war crimes. The Trump administration faces an uphill legal battle if they try to revoke Musk’s citizenship.”(You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)
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