"Jokic's or Wemby's of the world": $449.5 billionaire opens doors to changing American immigration policy with NBA analogy

Elon Musk said in November that “legal immigration to America is ridiculously slow and difficult, even for super talented people." Listed by Forbes as worth $449.5 billion, Musk asserted that this is a problem that needed to be “fixed.” The X, formerly Twitter, CEO sees only advantages for the USA if the best talents work for the country.

On Thursday, Musk doubled down on his contention, using an NBA analogy to illustrate his point:

“I am referring to bringing in via legal immigration the top ~0.1% of engineering talent as being essential for America to keep winning.

“This is like bringing in the Jokic’s or Wemby’s of the world to help your whole team (which is mostly Americans!) win the NBA. Thinking of America as a pro sports team that has been winning for a long time and wants to keep winning is the right mental construct.”

In basketball, two of the NBA’s best are foreigners. Reigning and three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic is Serbian, while Victor Wembanyama, a generational talent, is French. The Joker led the Denver Nuggets to the 2023 championship. Many expect Wemby to bring another title to San Antonio once he reaches his prime.

Elon Musk sees that the top engineering talents can help the USA the way Jokic and Wembanyama have done for their teams in the NBA.

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Former NBA star Gilbert Arenas once joked about LeBron James getting help from Elon Musk to play well

LeBron James missed a couple of games due to left foot soreness and for personal reasons. When he returned to play against the Memphis Grizzlies on Dec. 15, the LA Lakers superstar played well. The four-time MVP finished the game with 18 points, eight rebounds, eight assists, two blocks and one steal.

Last week, former NBA player Gilbert Arenas reacted to the performance in his podcast:

“We got to thank Elon Musk. He’s [James] a robot, bruh. He had to go down to Tesla, man, and get them batteries recharged. Them batteries in his leg was dying. Hook Bron up to that motherf**king machine, boy. Y’all see him running, right? Motherf***ker jumping!

“I had to hit him. ‘You can’t come back on day one with the new battery charge, brother! You gotta limp a little, or something.’”

Soon to turn 40, James is the oldest player in the NBA but continues to outplay opponents much younger than him. Arenas thinks the four-time NBA champ gets a little help from Elon Musk to keep up his elite play.