A cowboy-hat-donning, aviator-shades-wearing Elon Musk hiked down south to Texas to try to make a point about migration
John Moore via Getty Images
- Elon Musk headed down to Eagle Pass, Texas, on Wednesday to do a livestream on the border crisis.
- Musk said he was there to "eyeball the situation" and to "get a sense for what's going on" there.
- Musk said this week that he thinks the US "border needs to be secured."
Elon Musk on Thursday put on a cowboy hat and headed to Texas in what appeared to be an attempt to make a point about migration across the Southern border.
"Elon here. I'm at Eagle Pass. Just arrived, and we are just going to go around and talk to the major officials and law enforcement whatnot that are here," Musk said during a Thursday livestream on X, previously known as Twitter.
Musk said in his livestream that he was there to "eyeball the situation" and to "get a sense for what's going on" at the Texan city. The livestream has, at press time, been viewed more than 8.1 million times.
"This is real-time, unfiltered. There's no pre-conditions, no nothing. What you see is what I see," Musk continued.
Musk himself is an immigrant — the Tesla CEO was born in South Africa, and moved to the US for college.
"As an immigrant to the United States, I'm extremely pro-immigrant," Musk said. "I believe that we need a greatly expanded legal immigration system and that we should let anyone in the country, who is hardworking and honest and will be a contributor to the United States."
"By the same token, we should also not be allowing people in the country if they are breaking the law. That doesn't make sense," Musk added.
Musk claimed in his video that there would be "a collapse in social services" if the US didn't do something soon about unchecked immigration.
Musk's broadcast featured GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales, who thanked Musk for coming down to the city.
"I really appreciate Elon coming down and giving an unfiltered depiction of what's happening on the border. Us along the border, we feel very abandoned," Gonzales said.
"A big part of this is being able to share stories that no one hears about," Gonzales added.
Musk subsequently posted a separate 15-minute video on X, where he spoke to Gonzales and local law enforcement officials.
Musk has been posting a lot about the Southern border this week. His stance this week, however, stands in stark contrast to the comments he once made on the Trump administration's immigration policies.
In 2017, he criticized Trump's travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries, calling it "not the best way to address the country's challenges."
And in 2020, Musk disagreed with Trump's decision to suspend a variety of immigration visas, including the H-1B visa that is used by tech companies to hire talent.
But it seems that Musk has come around to some of Trump's plans, specifically the former president's idea to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.
Before his visit to Eagle Pass, Musk said in an X post on Wednesday that the US "border needs to be secured," and that he thinks this isn't "a partisan issue."
"We actually do need a wall and we need to require people to have some shred of evidence to claim asylum to enter, as everyone is doing that," Musk wrote in an X post on Wednesday.
Immigration at the US-Mexico border has long been a hot-button issue for various administrations. The US experienced a surge in migrants pouring in through the borders, following a drop in figures during the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center.
Representatives for Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider sent outside regular business hours.
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