Immigrant myself, came in this country when I was 17 from Albania, and have lived most of my life here (on my late 30s now).
While feeling 'american' is a subjective thing (I consider myself Albanian), There are still limitations. A naturalized citizen, can't be a US president, and in rare circumstances you can be stripped of your citizenship (it is called 'denaturalization').
So, yeah.... lets live it up to him to call himself whatever he wants, but calling him American is like calling
Einstein/Tesla/Von Brown american. Sure, they got US citizenship at some point... but that's not how Ethnicity works.
'American' is not an ethnicity. That is a big reason it is so great. If America is such an awful place why are you here and not in albania? Why did Einstein et al. come here? The American system enables things that are impossible in other countries.
eth·nic·i·ty
/eTHˈnisədē/
noun
"the fact or state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition."
Also, I love this country... where did I say this place is awful? I live in NYC and I love it. That doesn't mean that I don't love my original country as well, (Albania).
IMHO, this kind of thinking setups an us vs. them mentality. The best part of America is that anyone who lives here can call themselves an American. It is maximally inclusive. Segregating us into 'immigrants' vs. 'ethnic Americans' is antithetical to the ideals of this imperfect society.
Yes the confusion of nationality and geographic labeling of your birthing coordinates are often confused. Kinda why I stick with human a label as that transcends geopolitical baggage of all forms.
Honestly... it's complicated. As I understand it, African-American is one of the more recent ways of saying (with the intent of being polite) that someone is a black skinned and ethnically African and is American.
The term was not meant to extend to corner cases like mine - I'm white, but one of my ancestors grew up on the African continent in an island in the Atlantic and spoke Portuguese.
I suspect that this term will fall out of favor soon and be replaced by another.
By that logic, does American Asian only refer to people with certain facial characteristics? And are American Europeans only those with a white skin color?
I mean here in Europe we have plenty of Europeans that are not white. So, if a black skinned German went to the US, people would suddenly label him "African" American, just based on his skin color?
Americans of European descent tend to refer to themselves by nation of immigrant origin (eg: Italian American, Irish American, etc.)
However, because African slaves brought to the New World were denied the ability to culturally identify with, or even know (after generations) which African nation or tribe they descended from, the only common cultural identity they could form, apart from that which slavery had forced upon them, was as a diaspora from "Africa" as a whole.
"African American" is a term with a specific cultural and historical context behind it linked to the identity of the descendants of slaves and to black immigrants from Africa, and there is controversy about its use even within the black community, but it isn't going to correctly refer to the descendant of white Dutch colonizers in South Africa even if it does technically fit. Or at least not without coming across as racist itself.
Consider that racist if you like, but race and culture are messy and complicated everywhere, not just in the US.
Racism will exist as long as people look at the skin color or other generic markers to judge others. If you think it's okay to do so, that's sad.
Fighting racism with even more racism, will world three opposite result. It's not the first time in human history, that people mean well and create hell. It's just a different topic this time.
So, yea +1 for 'smart immigration' in the US.
Edit: Elon has South African, Canadian and US citizenship... so, what he calls/considers himself, it is up to him.