The story of Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old Muslim boy who was arrested under suspicion of bomb-making when he brought a homemade clock to his Texas school on Sept. 14, has traveled far and wide. So far, in fact, that he’s received praise and personal invitations from the likes of Barack Obama, and now Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
In a Facebook post on Sept. 16, Zuckerberg applauded Mohamed for his engineering prowess and then invited him to the office.
“You’ve probably seen the story about Ahmed, the 14 year old student in Texas who built a clock and was arrested when he took it to school. Having the skill and ambition to build something cool should lead to applause, not arrest. The future belongs to people like Ahmed,” Zuckerberg wrote in his brief post. ”Ahmed, if you ever want to come by Facebook, I’d love to meet you. Keep building.”
Thus far, the post has garnered over 400,000 likes and 13,000 comments. Zuckerberg joins a legion of other prominent figures—Hillary Clinton, MIT professors, and NASA scientists among them—who’ve stood up in support for Mohamed, not to mention countless voices on social media.
Not to be outdone by Facebook, Twitter is offering Mohamed an internship.