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John, the only efficiency Elon Musk cares about is how efficiently he can steal your money to line his own pockets.
Despite Donald Trump’s campaign promises, Musk is coming after your earned Social Security benefits.
Republican President and war hero Dwight Eisenhower could have been talking about Musk when he wrote back in 1954:1
“There is a tiny splinter group...that believes you can [abolish Social Security]. Among them are [the uber-wealthy founder of the Hunt Oil Company], a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.” (Emphasis added.)
Musk has made no secret of his disdain for our Social Security system. In just the last few weeks, he has used his gigantic platform to spread outrageous lies about Social Security.2
We are building an unbreakable wall around our Social Security system, and even the richest man in the world won’t be able to break it. Chip in to save Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid from Elon Musk!
Unlike the extremely rich, stupid men to whom Eisenhower was referring, Musk is, unfortunately, not just ignorant. Trump is giving him the power to steal our earned benefits.
Musk is drawing on an old playbook of claiming that the government in general, and Social Security in particular, are both full of “waste, fraud, and abuse.” Then, when he steals your benefits, he will claim that he is simply cutting waste.
Both Musk’s ignorance and his anti-Social Security playbook were on full display on Tuesday, when the shadow president talked to reporters in the Oval Office. In trying to convince us that our extremely efficient Social Security system is rife with fraud, he unknowingly showed how little he knows when he asserted, “just cursory examination of Social Security and we’ve got people in there that are 150 years old.”
This false claim has been repeated by enemies of Social Security for decades. Elon Musk is the latest in a long line of aspiring oligarchs who have tried to steal our Social Security system. Together, we’ve beaten every one of them who came before him, and together, we’ll beat him too. Rush a $7 donation today!
Here are the facts: The hardworking civil servants at the Social Security Administration (SSA) are extremely diligent in tracking the deaths of Social Security beneficiaries. SSA spends millions of dollars every year to purchase the automated death data of state vital records agencies.
Moreover, Social Security provides a lump sum death benefit, in part to encourage the families of beneficiaries to report their deaths. When beneficiaries die, their benefits are immediately terminated. Eligible survivors, if any, start to receive the benefits their loved ones have earned for them.
It is important to recognize that what Musk and others label “waste” exists because of the way politicians have drafted our laws. If you die on Friday, January 31, the benefit you receive on Monday, February 3 is an overpayment, because you were not alive for every day of the month of January. The law requires SSA to expend resources clawing back that benefit from the grieving survivors — which they routinely do.
No one born 150 years ago is receiving benefits. But here is where Musk is showing his ignorance: Let’s take the example of a person who is issued a Social Security card as an infant and dies at age ten, never having received a penny of benefits. Social Security doesn’t waste taxpayer dollars collecting that information and cancelling their Social Security number. To take the time and spend the money to do so would be wasteful.
Moreover, most adults who die leave behind spouses and children, including adult disabled children, who may be eligible for benefits based on the deceased’s earnings record. Therefore, that record may remain active for a very long time. Notably, the last person to receive a Civil War pension was a veteran’s disabled daughter. She died less than five years ago, in 2020.3
Rush $7 to fight back against Elon Musk’s propaganda!
The reason Musk was able to assert the ignorant claim about 150-year-olds is because he has accessed our personal data. Because Musk has access to Treasury payments, he has the Social Security numbers of every worker and Social Security beneficiary. He also has our bank account numbers, and other sensitive, private information.
Musk and his minions are reportedly now not just at the Treasury but also at SSA headquarters in Baltimore.4 That means they may already have access to how much a person has ever earned, at what job, and when, how old they are, their marital status and more. Musk may also have access to the medical records of every single one of the millions of Americans who have applied for disability benefits. No unelected, unconfirmed ideologue should be anywhere near those records, especially not the wealthiest man in the world, with his numerous conflicts of interest.5
What is going on should be obvious. Musk wants to steal your benefits and give himself a gigantic tax cut. But Social Security is incredibly popular, so he can’t be open about his intentions. Instead, he is trying to convince Americans that our Social Security system is overrun with massive fraud.
The truth is the opposite.
Less than one percent of Social Security payments are improper. That percentage includes all the beneficiaries who die days before their monthly benefit is due.
Given that these and all other improper payments constitute less than one percent of all payments made, those that are the result of fraud are vanishingly tiny. This is in sharp contrast to private insurance. Indeed, the American Academy of Actuaries issued a report just last September about private insurance.6 It concluded, “Insurance fraud is widespread.”
The reason plutocrats like Elon Musk are obsessed with cutting Social Security is that they want to take the money working people paid in over generations and shift it into their own pockets. We’ve beaten them before and we’ll beat them again. Donate today!
Ironically, the best way to stop improper payments, including those vanishingly few that result from fraud, is to adequately staff the Social Security Administration. Face-to-face transactions at your local Social Security field office will catch fraudsters. AI-powered chatbots generally won’t.
Unfortunately, if Musk gets his way, your local Social Security office will soon be closing. Shadow President Elon Musk has instructed the General Services Administration to terminate all federal office leases, including every Social Security office and every post office.7
Elon Musk will do whatever it takes to avoid paying his fair share and enrich himself at our expense. He has his eyes on our Social Security. Lies about fraud might shake people’s confidence, but are unlikely to shake people’s support for Social Security.
Rummaging around in our private information is unprecedented. It is hard to know what they have in mind or how to stop them. But there is one thing we absolutely can stop.
We can stop Congress from cutting our benefits. We must demand that every member of Congress stand up to Elon Musk’s cynical efforts to steal our earned Social Security benefits while giving himself and other billionaires a hefty tax cut.
Every single member of Congress must publicly pledge that they will keep the promises Donald Trump made on the campaign trail. That means not one penny in cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. Every member of Congress must tell Elon Musk and Donald Trump: Hands off Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid!
This week alone, we’ve sent tens of thousands of messages to members of Congress demanding they take the pledge. Keep up the pressure! Donate today!
Thank you,
Nancy Altman
Social Security Works
P.S. If you haven’t already, use our simple tool to message your members of Congress and demand they take the pledge!
1 https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/letter-to-edgar-newton-eisenhower/
2 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1863777030766022779
3 https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/06/04/she-was-last-american-collect-civil-war-pension-7313-month-she-just-died/
4 https://www.semafor.com/article/02/06/2025/inside-doges-march-with-the-social-security-administration-soon-to-come
5 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/us/politics/elon-musk-companies-conflicts.html
6 https://www.actuary.org/sites/default/files/2024-09/casualty-brief-insurance-fraud.pdf
7 https://apnews.com/article/trump-musk-gsa-terminate-office-leases-f8faac5e2038722f705587c8dd21ab26
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