Will Elon Musk Champion Immigrant Founders or Turn Them Away?

COMMENTARY

It’s abundantly clear that Elon Musk has captured the attention of the president-elect. What remains unclear is whether he will use this new position of political adjacency to advocate for his fellow immigrants or to stand in their way.

Our pick for president aside, Musk and I share some commonalities. Like me, he first came to the United States as an international student and ultimately became a naturalized U.S. citizen. 

Many naturalized U.S. citizens feel as if they’ve left the immigration system behind. They’ve crossed that bridge, taken the Oath of Allegiance, received a U.S. passport and secured the sacred right to vote. But here is where we differ. As an immigration lawyer for the past 17 years, navigating the immigration system is a daily task for me, and for my clients. 

The U.S. immigration system was not designed with today’s startup ecosystem in mind. Musk himself benefited from a more accommodating system in the 1990s. I don’t have the full details of his immigration history, but reports suggest he received an H-1B visa during a time when they were readily available. Congress even increased the cap on new H-1Bs from 65,000 to 115,000 in 1999 and 2000, and later to 195,000 from 2001 to 2003 to meet market demand for tech talent.

Today’s immigrant startup founders face a very different reality. Access to H-1B visas is severely restricted, with the cap frozen at 65,000 (plus 20,000 for U.S. master’s degree holders) since 2004. The result? A “Hunger Games”-style process each year, where top talent is pitted against each other in a random lottery for selection. 

High-skilled H-1B holders contribute significantly to the U.S. economy, but this isn’t reflected by current policy. Last year, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services received approximately 423,000 applications for just 85,000 new H-1B visas — a grim situation for both the applicants and the U.S. economy. Although Musk claims he will “go to war,” to support the program, he actively continues to endorse a president-elect who has threatened to end it in the past.

I’d invite Musk (and, indeed, President-elect Donald Trump) to consider current challenges immigrant founders face. What if Musk were trying to build his startup as a student today? What would it be like to be a driven, determined, aspiring founder seeking a work visa now instead of in the 1990s? What happens when such a founder doesn’t get selected in the H-1B lottery? 

Programs like the recently feasible International Entrepreneur Parole program offer an alternative. IEP was created by regulations in the Obama administration, and it gives high-potential startup founders the option to temporarily work in the United States while building their companies and creating American jobs. 

Unfortunately, the previous Trump administration attempted to terminate IEP before it even started, and doing so again would be devastating for immigrant entrepreneurs and for our country.

These founders are critical drivers of innovation and job creation, and IEP is a sensible policy that should receive bipartisan support. 

Not every aspect of immigration should be split down party lines and IEP perfectly illustrates this.

IEP is especially important for American competitiveness because immigrant founders — like Musk — play an outsized role in STEM and emerging fields like AI and quantum computing. Immigrant founders consistently punch above their weight and despite comprising approximately 17% of the workforce, 55% of America’s startup companies valued at $1 billion or more had at least one immigrant co-founder.

While Republicans have control over the House and the Senate — given his background — Musk’s influence could advance meaningful discussions around a startup visa. He could encourage Congress to prioritize legislation like the Let Immigrants Kickstart Employment Act, introduced by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., in 2021, to create a dedicated startup visa.

This would provide a long-term, modern immigration solution for immigrant entrepreneurs, and it is the kind of forward-thinking policy would benefit everyone. 

While I might not (read: definitely do not) agree with Musk on most policy issues, I think we can all agree that America cannot be great without its immigrant founders.

Let’s ensure they have the opportunity to stay.

Fiona McEntee is the founding attorney of McEntee Law Group and has been practicing immigration law exclusively for over 17 years. She originally came to the United States as an international student from Ireland and is now a proud dual citizen. She can be reached on LinkedIn.