Donald Trump vs Elon Musk: Can the Tesla boss be deported? POTUS ally's demands fuels big ugly breakup

Donald Trump vs Elon Musk: As the big ugly breakup of bromance between Donald Trump and his 'first buddy' Elon Musk continues to brew further, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has now said that the Trump administration should investigate the Tesla “illegal alien's” immigration status and deport the billionaire.

Question is, can Elon Musk be actually deported by the Trump administration?

Elon Musk, born in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1971, became a US citizen in 2002 after completing the naturalization process, through the naturalisation process after several years of living and working in the country.

As per the Immigration and Nationality Act under US law, citizenship gained through naturalisation can be revoked if it was "procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation."

Before settling in the United States, Musk moved to Canada in 1989 and later arrived in the US in 1992 to study at the University of Pennsylvania.

What led to the ‘deportation demands'?

What once started as a ‘big, beautiful’ bromance between Donald Trump and Elon Musk ended in a public feud that escalated to a point of no possible return after the Tesla CEO called for Trump to be impeached, and described what the president called his "Big Beautiful [spending] Bill" as “The Big Ugly Bill”.

With the ongoing tussle, Steve Bannon, former White House chief strategist, told The New York Times: “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."

Steve Bannon's demands for deporting Elon Musk also comes amid the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigrants in the US.

Is Elon Musk an ‘illegal’ citizen?

Last year, October, The Washington Post published a report alleging that Elon Musk "worked illegally in the United States" by founding a company in 1995 while on a student visa—despite never enrolling at Stanford University, as he had claimed.

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.”

What legal experts say

In an interview with Wired, Cornell Law School immigration expert Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr explained that if the allegations of Musk working illegally while on a student visa are accurate, there could be strong legal grounds to revoke his citizenship. He noted that had Musk disclosed the truth, he likely wouldn’t have qualified for an H-1B visa, permanent residency, or eventual naturalisation.

Similarly, Amanda Frost, a legal scholar at the University of Virginia, pointed out : “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.”