Someone has to say it: Elon Musk has lied for 27 years about his credentials. He does not have a BS in Physics, or any…

Someone has to say it: Elon Musk has lied for 27 years about his credentials. He does not have a BS in Physics, or any technical field. Did not get into a PhD program. Dropped out in 1995 & was illegal. Later, investors quietly arranged a diploma - but not in science. 🧵1/

This thread will be long. Finding the key contradictions took just a few hours, back in May, but it’s important to be complete. So I’ll go through it all, and why it’s dangerous for the US. Please retweet. Sunshine disinfects. All sources are at bit.ly/ElonMuskThread 2/

Catching Elon in a lie isn’t hard. In 2013: “I had to [stay in school]..otherwise I’d get kicked out of the country.” (This is correct.) Then “since I already had my undergrad, I could..get an H1-B visa” (That’s a lie). In 1995 he had no degree, so no visa. He was illegal. 3/

To be clear: no one cares about the degree; the immigration violation is history. What matters is Elon’s Big Lie, pretending to be what he isn’t. The academic “stolen valor” subverts judgment (“but he’s a genius!”). And it opens him to influence. It makes him a security risk. 4/

Elon’s key influences are the “PayPal Mafia” capos, Peter Thiel & David Sacks. They urged him to buy Twitter, advise him on running it. Both with childhoods in apartheid S. Africa, angry culture wars at Stanford, now working on Thiel’s ‘political project’ to upend democracy. 5/

So Elon matters, & people around him are not America’s friends. Someone has to call out the secrets. Many people know - Elon’s been sued over the fake degree - but even as Twitter tanks, no one has the guts to talk. Silicon Valley’s the last place to lecture us on free speech. 6/

@twittersafety (if anyone’s left): this thread describes public evidence about a public figure; it’s not a violation. It’s citizen journalism. Also remember the “Streisand Effect”: suspending this account would make the story go bigger. I would go public. It would be news. 7/

Outline A. Review: from college to Zip2 (9-12) B. No visa (13-16) C. No Physics degree (17-30) D. No PhD acceptance (31-44) E. Quitting Twitter’s board (45-48) F. Why it matters: national security (49-52) G. Things to do (53-60) H. Thoughts (61-67) 8/ drive.google.com/drive/folders/…

PART A - REVIEW. Elon Musk moved from South Africa to Canada in 1989, did odd jobs for a year, then enrolled at Queen’s Univ., where he wore logos from the business program: “QC” = “Queen’s Commerce”. After 2 years, he transferred to Penn. At this point he’d be on an F-1 visa. 9/

His bio describes Elon’s college years. Queens: “went to the least number of classes possible.” Penn: ”video game binges that went on for days.” He lived in a party house with glow-in-the-dark decor, 500-person ragers. But “it's difficult to find..students who remember him” 10/

After 3 years at Penn, Elon left for CA with brother Kimbal, tried to catch the internet wave. They rented a Palo Alto office, slept in it when not coding. By Nov 3, 1995, Elon filed to incorporate “Global Link Information Network Inc.”, a kind of online business directory. 11/

In the go-go 1990s, the internet was new & investors moved fast. In 1996 Mohr Davidow Ventures offered $3M for Global Link. On Aug 15, just 8 months after its startup, the change was official: Rich Sorkin was named CEO, and Elon became Secretary. They renamed it Zip2. 12/

PART B - THE VISA. Mohr Davidow now had a problem: Elon was undocumented. This is indisputable. If he’d finished a degree, he could have gone on OPT - starting a business counts as “practical training”. But as a dropout, there’s no legal path to stay. 13/

Nowadays a 1-year overstay means you’d be deported, could be barred for 3 years. In the 1990s, there might be workarounds. But what were Mohr Davidow’s options? Elon wouldn’t qualify for an EB-1 “genius” visa: 8 months of “hairball” code doesn’t prove “extraordinary ability” 14/

Elon mentions the H1-B “specialty occupations” visa many times. Those were easier to get in the 1990s than now, but still had a hard criterion: you need an undergrad degree. And Elon didn’t have one. He couldn’t even apply til he somehow managed to get a diploma. 15/

Elon didn’t have the $1M in non-US money he’d need for an EB-5 “immigrant investor” visa. Mohr Davidow could quietly stake him some, but that’s not legal. Of course, hiring an undocumented worker isn’t legal either. So dodgy things happened in 1996. By 1997, a path was found. 16/

PART C - DEGREES. Again, we care about Elon’s degrees because HE cares - a lot. He’s made Physics part of his identity. He talks about it so much there’s a highlight reel. The 27-year lie is his persona. 17/ youtube.com/watch?v=NSkJTk…

Why the lie? A Physics degree isn’t even that useful for Elon’s career. Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, founders of Tesla Motors, have what you’d actually want: CS and Electrical Engineering. But “Physics” does that to some people. It’s a kind of status worship. 18/

So let’s walk through the evidence on his degrees carefully: 1) evidence from lawsuits (subpoenas and depositions), 2) Elon’s coursework, 3) statements from Penn, 4) false statements to his biographer. 19/

1 - Lawsuits. Here’s the story of how we have Elon’s diplomas. In 1995, Elon interviewed at a startup, then ghosted them, started Global Link instead. The owner sued, alleging Elon swiped his business plan. The case hinged on deception, since borrowing ideas is legal. 20/

To get the interview, Elon said he was a Stanford PhD student, with degrees in Computational Physics & Finance. The plaintiff called that fraud & subpoenaed Penn. It seems Elon was indeed given two diplomas, but only in 1997, and the 2nd one has no department. 21/

Note that pulling strings at Penn’s Wharton School is not that big a scandal. Credentialing unstudious elites is part of Wharton’s game: Trump & Trump Jr are grads too. But Penn Physics is small, just a handful of graduates, and holding their reputation requires standards. 22/

Elon had to sit for a deposition as part of the 2007 lawsuit. He was grilled about saying “Computational Physics”, which doesn’t exist at Penn. When asked about the blank diploma, he evaded. Elon’s been talking his way out of situations for a long time. He won the suit. 23/

In 2009, ousted Tesla Motors founder Martin Eberhard also sued, & again attacked Elon’s Physics degree claim. Eberhard reused material from the earlier suit, and added lies found in official SEC filings. This time it seems it was successful, since Elon settled out of court. 24/

2 - Coursework. We know Elon did try Physics, but was academically behind. That’s clear from homework he posted: he’s a 3rd-year in 2nd-year Mechanics. It’s a red flag for someone who skips a lot of class. Some prodigies can ace tests without classes - but they aren’t behind. 25/

3 - Penn statements: Penn’s Wharton School regularly claims Elon, world’s richest man, as an alumnus, but the Physics Dept. seems never to have done so. In their congrats to 1997 graduates, there’s no Elon. 26/

Penn Arts & Sciences (which includes Physics), HAS called Elon a Physics alum, in one context: a bio for the “Elon Musk Public Lecture, made possible through a generous endowment gifted to the Center for Particle Cosmology in 2009”. Gifted the year of Elon’s deposition. 27/

3 - False statements to his biographer. In 2015, Ashlee Vance put out a gushing bio of Elon. At some point he noticed that Elon’s degrees came 2 years late and asked about it, but then just accepted Elon’s strange answers, & shoved them in an appendix. They don’t hold up. 28/

Elon explained his delayed diplomas by saying he had a minor problem at Penn: he hadn’t fulfilled his Language and History requirements, and when those were later dropped he got the degrees. But Penn has not dropped its Language and History requirements. 29/

Elon also said he got so tied up in coding he “forgot” he hadn’t graduated. Just - no. No foreign student “forgets” about their visa status. (Note how Elon glides over being undocumented). Even without the diploma, the inconsistencies should have tipped reporters off. 30/

PART D - STANFORD. Lots more contradictions about Elon’s supposed acceptance to Stanford, so here’s the summary as a reminder. 31/