A handful of immigrant billionaires got their start in the US with the help of a visa designed to attract highly skilled talent. As the Trump administration tightens its rules around H-1B visas by slapping a hefty $1,000,000 annual fee on employers, there’s a long list of immigrants who boosted the US economy, not just by leading companies but also by founding some of Silicon Valley’s biggest giants. Today, many of America’s billionaire-backed tech firms remain the most prolific users of H-1B visas.
By Forbes’ count, about 12% of America’s billionaires are immigrants. But only a small number directly benefited from H-1B visas at the beginning of their US careers.
The Richest H-1B Founders
Elon Musk, for instance, the South African-born founder of Tesla, SpaceX, and X, used the H-1B to stay in the US after his student and exchange visas, building a $400 billion fortune. It’s not just Musk. Tech giants like Satya Nadella at Microsoft and Sundar Pichai at Alphabet (Google) also started on H-1Bs, though they climbed the executive ladder rather than founding companies. For self-made immigrant founders, Jay Chaudhry of cloud security firm Zscaler is another example, though he arrived in the US before the H-1B program existed. He currently has a fortune of around $16.7 billion.
Profiles of Immigrant Billionaires who once held H-1Bs
Jeff Skoll
Born in Canada, Jeff Skoll in 2025 has a net worth of $5.2 billion, making him one of the richest immigrant billionaires in America. He studied engineering at the University of Toronto and later earned an MBA at Stanford. Skoll began his career at eBay on a J-1 visa before moving to an H-1B. While at Stanford, he met eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, who hired him in 1995 as president of the startup. Skoll still defends the visa as vital for filling gaps in tech, healthcare, and science. “The H-1B visa is an essential way to bring in skilled workers to make up for the gaps,” he says.
Eric Yuan
Born in China, Eric Yuan has a current net worth of $5 billion. He is the founder of Zoom. In his early days, Yuan faced a total of eight visa rejections before finally securing an H-1B in 1997 to join WebEx. “I told myself, ‘I’ll do all I can until you tell me that I can never come here anymore,’” Yuan told Forbes in 2019. After working for 14 years at the company, he went on to found San Jose-based competitor Zoom, which received a massive boost during the COVID-19 era.
Rajiv Jain
Born in India, Rajiv Jain has a net worth of $4.9 billion as of 2025, according to Forbes. In the early 1990s, when the H-1B program was introduced in America, Jain moved to the US to pursue an MBA at the University of Miami and later secured an H-1B in 1994. He spent decades at Vontobel Asset Management before founding GQG Partners in 2016. Along with his co-founder, Tim Carver, he debuted the firm on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2021. Today, GQG Partners manages $153 billion in assets.
Jayshree Ullal
Another Indian-origin billionaire on the list is Jayshree Ullal, who was born in the UK and raised in India. Ullal has a net worth of $4.7 billion. She moved to the US to pursue engineering degrees at San Francisco State University and Santa Clara University. Early in her career, she obtained an H-1B visa and joined Crescendo Communications in 1992, which was later acquired by Cisco. Ullal spent 15 years at Cisco and has been the CEO of Arista Networks since 2008.
Thierry Cruanes
Born in France, Thierry Cruanes has a net worth of $1.1 billion. He began his career in the U.S. with Oracle, where he soon became a core member of its optimisation team, overseeing the company’s databases. Before joining Oracle, he spent seven years at IBM in Europe. Cruanes is credited with co-founding cloud-based data storage company Snowflake in 2012 and leading it to the biggest software IPO in history in 2020. He also holds more than 200 patents.
Early visa recipients who broke ground before H-1B
Patrick Soon Shiong
Born in South Africa, Patrick Soon-Shiong has a net worth of $6 billion. In 1983, he became the youngest professor of surgery at UCLA and later invented the breakthrough cancer drug Abraxane. He then sold Abraxis BioScience for $2.9 billion and later bought the LA Times and the San Diego Tribune for $500 million. Soon-Shiong entered the US on an H-1 visa, the predecessor of today’s H-1B. “When managed well, this initiative empowers talented individuals to drive innovation, strengthen our economy, and enrich America’s diverse fabric for generations to come,” he told Forbes.
Raj Sardana
Born in India, Srdana has a net worth of $2 billion. He arrived in the US in 1981 with “maybe a hundred dollars.” Studied at Georgia Tech while working cafeteria jobs. Got an H-1 visa to work at Howmet Aerospace. Later founded the IT services firm Innova Solutions in 1998, now a global player.