The students absolutely are. Up until now the law applies to everyone. Now, their applications were probably rapidly approved unlike many international students. But there’s no carve out for being powerful (yet).
They could easily get an E2 entrepreneur visa, and the necessary cash is as little as $300k, most of which can be withdrawn later, so it's effectively a free citizenship as long as you have cash.
You probably will be able to soon though, and it 'only' costs $5m: "A ‘Trump Card Visa’ Is Already Showing Up in Immigration Forms" [0]
I couldn't blame you for not having seen this though. It was quickly flagged and never whitelisted; like so, so many other important stories here this past few months. Check my favorites for more falsely flagged stories.