Chamath Palihapitiya and Elon Musk's H-1B Visa Journeys Spark Debate on Program Abuse

Sri Lankan-origin Canadian-American venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya said he came to the US on an H-1B visa. So did Elon Musk.

Sri Lankan-origin American billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya said he came to the country on the much-discussed, much-abused H-1B visa program at a time when there were no takers for the visa program. Speaking to the Axios Show, Palihapitiya said he also gets called out on social media as "part of the problem". "I came on an H1B visa. Elon came on an H1B visa. This is in the early 2000s. Why? Nobody was applying for these things. And who did you have? Forget about me, I'm irrelevant, but you had guys like him, you had these incredible scientists, Urs Hölzle that ends up with Google. These are giants," he said. Coming to today's H-1B situation, he said now 800,000 applications come for 20,000 slots. "You can't stipulate abuse because what that means is so overwhelming that the next Elon or Urs Hölzle was already gone," he said. "We can stipulate the following two things: Immigration is really good. We should be attracting the best. And they should want to be here. But we should also make it fair so that the best of the best of the best who have been getting heismanned for the last five years, because a handful of companies in certain countries have abused this system. You need to stop and torniquet the bleeding so that you can reestablish trust with the American population at large. There are a lot of people that look at me and say, 'That guy's part of the problem.' You can see it in the comments on X. And I'm like, 'Wow, me?'" he said. "They see the people that show up and they're like, 'This person is not smarter than me. All I can see is wage suppression.' We have a responsibility to the people who are working and paying into the system to answer their questions honestly. You can't stipulate and ignore it. You can't. Sometimes you gotta say, 'You know what? That was gross abuse.'" Chamath said. Chamath Palihapitiya was born in Sri Lanka but moved to Canada at the age of five and moved to the US for work after completing his studies in Canada.

Did Elon Musk come to US on an H-1B visa?

Elon Musk was on an H-1B visa but he did not enter the US on this visa. In 1992, Elon Musk came to the US as a student on a student visa to study at the University of Pennsylvania. As he started his own company, he claimed that he switched from a J-1 visa to an H-1B. In 2002, Elon Musk became a US citizen.