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The resurfaced 2013 video of Elon Musk and his brother Kimbal is doing the rounds again. Kimbal says the venture capitalists who funded Zip2 “realized that we were illegal immigrants.” Elon cuts in: “I’d say it was a gray area.”
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Omar, who arrived in the United States as a refugee from Somalia in 1995 and became a naturalized citizen in 2000, is the subject of an active federal investigation. According to reporting by Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, investigators are examining whether she or her late father misstated her age on immigration paperwork so she could derive citizenship as a minor through her father’s naturalization rather than applying independently. Some records have listed her birth year as 1981 and others as 1982; the distinction matters because only those under 18 at the time of a parent’s naturalization automatically derive citizenship. Additional questions have been raised about her father’s military background in Somalia. On October 12, 2026, Homeland Security Investigations agents executed a court-authorized search of her Washington-area home, seizing her passport, phone, computers, and notebooks. More than a dozen grand-jury subpoenas have been issued to relatives. Sources familiar with the probe have said one potential outcome under consideration is a denaturalization case. Omar has denied wrongdoing and described the actions as political intimidation. Earlier reviews of similar allegations, including during the first Trump administration in 2019, did not advance due to insufficient evidence of fraud.
Musk, who naturalized in 2002 after arriving from South Africa, has faced recurring claims rooted in a 2013 interview at the Milken Institute Global Conference. In the clip, his brother Kimbal Musk recalled that venture capitalists funding their early company Zip2 “realized that we were illegal immigrants.” Elon Musk responded that it was “a gray area.” Critics have interpreted the exchange as an admission of unauthorized work or status issues while on a student visa in the mid-1990s, when student visas typically restricted off-campus employment and business activity. The video has resurfaced periodically, including in posts from accounts highlighting potential enforcement implications. Fact-checking outlets such as Snopes have examined the claims and noted that available evidence indicates Musk followed a legal immigration path, that investors assisted in regularizing status, and that he has described himself as a legal immigrant. No public documents or formal findings have established material misrepresentations on his naturalization application. During later political disputes, some figures including Steve Bannon called for scrutiny of his status, and Trump at one point said authorities would “have to take a look,” but no denaturalization investigation comparable to Omar’s has been reported.
Under federal law, naturalized citizens can lose citizenship only through a judicial process known as denaturalization. The Department of Justice must prove in federal court, by clear, unequivocal, and convincing evidence, that citizenship was obtained through concealment of a material fact or willful misrepresentation that affected eligibility. Accusations alone, informal comments, or unresolved questions about temporary visa conditions do not meet that standard. Successful denaturalization would revert the individual to prior non-citizen status, after which removal proceedings could occur; citizens cannot otherwise be deported.
Legal analysts have noted that while both individuals have been accused of some form of irregularity at points in their immigration histories, the current public record shows a formal, document-focused investigation involving Omar and a long-standing, largely anecdotal claim involving Musk that has not produced equivalent government action or proof of application fraud. Whether either set of accusations ultimately satisfies the high evidentiary threshold for denaturalization remains a matter for courts, not political assertion.
If the Trump administration successfully denaturalizes and removes Rep. Ilhan Omar on the basis of the current investigation into her immigration paperwork, the political pressure to examine Elon Musk will be intense and predictable. Critics will immediately point to the 2013 video in which Musk’s brother said they were “illegal immigrants” when funding Zip2 and Musk called it a “gray area.” They will argue that selective enforcement exposes the process as punishment of political enemies rather than neutral application of law. That political argument has force. The legal claim that one outcome requires the other does not.
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