He was born in South Africa, but he holds citizenship in the US & Canada as well. He went to Canada because he couldn’t get access to the US, but his mother was a Canadian national so he was able to convince her to get them Canadian passports to attend school in Canada and then transfer to the US. So after a couple years at Queens Uni he transferred to Upenn. Then after completing his Bachelors, in order to stay in the US he pretended he was going to get his PhD, but then started a company sort of like online yellow pages called Zip2. His investors realized that as a student couldn’t work, they needed to get him a green card. So they got him a an “investor green card” (Eb-5) and 5 years later he became a naturalized US citizen.
It’s complicated.
He was born in South Africa, but he holds citizenship in the US & Canada as well. He went to Canada because he couldn’t get access to the US, but his mother was a Canadian national so he was able to convince her to get them Canadian passports to attend school in Canada and then transfer to the US. So after a couple years at Queens Uni he transferred to Upenn. Then after completing his Bachelors, in order to stay in the US he pretended he was going to get his PhD, but then started a company sort of like online yellow pages called Zip2. His investors realized that as a student couldn’t work, they needed to get him a green card. So they got him a an “investor green card” (Eb-5) and 5 years later he became a naturalized US citizen.