Elon Musk Promises Progress Against Trump's Immigration Ban
It's not exactly clear what that means, though.
President Donald J. Trump met with Elon Musk and other business leader members of his economic policy panel on Friday. According to CNBC, the panel, which also includes Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, General Motors’ Mary Barra, IBM’s Ginni Rometty, and Wal-Mart’s Doug McMillon, discussed taxes, trade, women’s issues, and training workers for tech jobs. On Thursday, Musk promised via a statement on Twitter, “I and others will express our objections to the recent executive order on immigration and offer suggestions for changes to the policy.” After the meeting, he tweeted that progress had been made, but he did not go into specifics.
The SpaceX founder and CEO also clarified that his presence on the panel does not constitute an endorsement of the new administration’s policies. He and other panel members have received a lot of flack for sitting on the panel, but Musk says he will remain as a member, and that, “engaging on critical issues will on balance serve the greater good.”
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick doesn’t see things quite the same way. He resigned from the panel this week after the overwhelmingly negative response from customers over what was seen as a strike-breaking move from Uber amid protests over Trump’s Muslim immigration ban.
The panel has moved on without Kalanick, and on Friday afternoon, Musk cryptically tweeted about the progress that has occurred and will continue to occur as a result of discussions in the panel.
This week, a judge ordered the Department of Homeland Security not to enforce the executive order that instituted a travel ban from seven Muslim-majority countries. In a tweet on Thursday, in response to his statement about staying on the White House panel, Musk gave some details about the progress that had been made.
It’s unclear exactly that Musk is saying panel discussions have accomplished, since officials clarified earlier in the week that green card residents and dual citizens were not affected by the travel ban. Musk did not respond immediately to a request for comment. Inverse will update this story as more information becomes available.
Update
On Saturday, Musk took credit for putting the travel ban on Friday’s meeting agenda and making it a focal point. He also announced that he had brought up climate, and suggested that he would continue to persist with these particular discussions. Musk has not offered any details on the discussions or how his comments were received in the meeting.
