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Elon Musk called Social Security a “Ponzi Scheme” in a discussion with podcaster Joe Rogan that was released online Friday. And it’s just the latest rhetorical assault by a member of the Trump regime on America’s social safety net as Musk continues to lay off thousands of federal workers and illegally stop payments at several government agencies.
“Social Security is the biggest Ponzi Scheme of all time,” Musk told Rogan, who asked the billionaire to explain.
“Right, so people pay in through Social Security and the money goes out of Social Security immediately but the obligation for Social Security is your entire retirement career,” Musk said, as though he was explaining something scandalous.
“So, you’re paying.. the kind…” Musk said, stammering. “You’re paying. Like, like if you look at the future obligations of Social Security it far exceeds the tax revenue. Far.”
Yes, people who are working now pay for the Social Security that retirees are now enjoying. That’s not a Ponzi Scheme, it’s how most social programs work. The people of the 20th century created a system to ensure that elderly people in the wealthiest country the world has ever known wouldn’t starve to death after they stopped working.
Then Musk pivoted into national debt, asking Rogan, “Have you ever looked at the debt clock,” clearly trying to change the subject into something that sounds more scary than “Social Security is funded by taxpayers like other social programs.”
Musk also claimed that there were 20 million people marked as “alive” in the Social Security database who were actually dead, but didn’t present any evidence that there was widespread fraud occurring. People do try to hide the deaths of loved ones so that they can continue to receive Social Security checks, but those those kinds of investigations are rare and there’s nothing to suggest millions of people are receiving fraudulent payments.
Rogan said it was an “interesting narrative” that Musk shouldn’t be allowed access to the most highly sensitive data at the Social Security office. And Musk insisted that every member of DOGE who had been given access had gone through the proper channels and been vetted properly. Again, like everything that Musk says, there was no evidence presented to prove the people at DOGE had been vetted properly. There has been, however, many reports that staff at DOGE have not received the proper clearances to view the data they’ve viewed. In fact, one story emerged of the DOGE team trying to access a SCIF at the U.S. Treasury.
Musk has made it clear that he doesn’t like Social Security. They’re dismantling what they can now, but it’s obviously going to be a heavy lift to massively disrupt Social Security without pissing off millions of Americans. Will they do it? Only time will tell. But given the pace they’ve developed for hacking things to smithereens, don’t bet against it happening sooner rather than later.
