Elon Musk has made no effort to hide his intense interest in Social Security. In fact, Donald Trump’s biggest campaign donor and the head of the quasi-governmental DOGE operation keeps tweeting bizarre claims about alleged fraud and “inconsistencies” he thinks he has identified in the Social Security system.
Those claims have invariably collapsed under scrutiny. Indeed, it has become rather embarrassing lately. Musk claimed, for example, that millions of people over the age of 130 were receiving Social Security checks — he said it was perhaps “the biggest fraud in the history of humanity” — but none of this was true.
The Republican megadonor has not, however, limited his concerns to misguided claims about improper payments; he’s also targeted the system itself. Nearly two weeks ago, Musk went so far as to label Social Security a “Ponzi scheme.”
In an interview with Fox Business’ Larry Kudlow, he kept going. The New York Times reported:
Elon Musk, the world’s richest individual, suggested on Monday that his government cost-cutting team would scrutinize Social Security and other entitlement spending, describing the expenditures as rife with fraudulent transactions and repeating a conspiracy theory that Democrats were using the programs as a “gigantic magnet to attract illegal immigrants and have them stay in the country.”
The two men — a former member of Trump’s White House team interviewing a current member of Trump’s White House team — covered a fair amount of ground, but there was one line from Musk that stood out as especially notable.
“You’ve got to actually take action,” the billionaire said. “So, I mean, the waste report in entitlement spending, which is most of the federal spending, is entitlements. So that’s, like, the big one to eliminate. That’s the sort of half-trillion, maybe $600, $700 billion a year.”
To the extent that reality still has any significance in the political discourse, there’s simply no reason to accept Musk’s claims at face value. As The Associated Press reported, “Musk’s estimate for the level of fraud in entitlements far outpaces figures from watchdogs like Social Security’s inspector general, who previously said there was $71.8 billion in improper payments from fiscal years 2015 through 2022. That’s less than 1% of benefits paid out during that time period.”
As for the bizarre conspiracy theory that Democrats use social-insurance programs such as Social Security as a “gigantic magnet to attract illegal immigrants,” let’s not forget that undocumented immigrants are ineligible for Social Security benefits. What’s more, they end up inadvertently strengthening Social Security’s finances by putting money into the system without taking anything out.
But as important as these details are, let’s not miss the forest for the trees: Musk’s falsehoods matter, but the fact that one of the most powerful figures in the White House — if not the most powerful figure — is increasingly overt in his condemnations of Social Security matters just as much. The more Trump’s most generous contributor talks about the program, the more obvious it becomes that Musk sees Social Security spending as very much on the table. “You don’t need to scratch your head and wonder what’s going on when you see that the Trump administration is decimating Social Security offices and staff,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said last week, before Musk’s on-air comments to Kudlow. “And you don’t need to ponder what might happen next when Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, says that the tens-of-millions of seniors, families, and children who depend on these earned benefits are part of some scam — because that’s a real threat and a real promise: They are coming for your Social Security.” The New York Democrat added, “The richest man in the world and his sidekick, the President of the United States, have decided to attack the bedrock of America’s social safety net, and now your pocket is in the way.” This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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