More than 150,000 Canadians have signed a petition to revoke Elon Musk's citizenship.
Filed on 20 February, the parliamentary petition accuses Musk of being 'engaged in activities that go against the national interest of Canada'.
It points to the tech billionaire closely aligning himself with Donald Trump, who has repeatedly made controversial statements about conquering Canada and turning it into the US’s 51st state.
British Columbia author Qualia Reed launched the petition in Canada’s House of Commons, where it was sponsored by New Democrat MP and Musk-critic Charlie Angus.
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Although the Tesla CEO was born in South Africa, he has Canadian citizenship through his mother, who is from Regina, Saskatchewan.
The owner of X (formerly Twitter) has been working closely with Trump’s administration to shrink the US federal government spending.
Trump has made multiple threats to impose steep tariffs on Canadian goods and openly boasted about having the US annex the country.
The petition claims that the SpaceX founder's alignment with Trump makes him 'a member of a foreign government that is attempting to erase Canadian sovereignty.'
It asks Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau - whom Trump has often mocked as 'governor' - to take away Musk's Canadian passport and revoke his citizenship with immediate effect.
Petitions like this need 500+ signatures to be formally certified and presented to Canada’s House of Commons for a formal government response, according to the Canadian Press. This has posed no problem as of late Sunday (23 February), Reed's petition collected about 157,000 signatures and still continues to grow.
Canada’s House of Commons is set to resume work on 24 March unless a general election is called before then.
The petition’s signing period will remain open until 20 June.
The world's richest man has played a key role in Trump’s aggressive cost-cutting measures, leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) - a program that has resulted in massive layoffs across US federal agencies.
As a result, hundreds of thousands of US government civil servants have been affected, including those working at the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, Health and Human Services, the Internal Revenue Service and the National Parks Service, among others.
An Economist/YouGov poll of nearly 1,600 respondents recently found Musk and his so-called DOGE venture are far less popular with the public than they claim to be serving, with many Americans opposing the deep cuts.
It seems Musk is unfazed by the petition and continues to use his X platform to promote his political views.
On Sunday, Musk reposted one post, reading: “Of course we support Doge! Those who don’t support it are unAmerican.”