New York Times – On Politics: Musk’s Washington
Musk Keeps His Eye on Social Security
The tech billionaire has repeatedly suggested, without evidence, that Social Security is rife with fraud, even as President Trump denies plans to cut those benefits.
By Jess Bidgood – March 14, 2025
Elon Musk keeps talking about Social Security.
Two weeks ago, he called it a Ponzi scheme. This week, he suggested that his Department of Government Efficiency would scrutinize the agency’s spending. And he has repeatedly suggested, without evidence, that Social Security payments are flowing to undocumented immigrants and dead people.
The latest sign of his interest in the agency came today, when my colleagues Theodore Schleifer, Kate Conger and Ryan Mac reported that one of Musk’s closest advisers had taken a position there.
The adviser is Antonio Gracias, a private equity investor who lent Musk $1 million during Tesla’s early days and has vacationed with his family in places like Jackson Hole, Wyo. Gracias’ involvement may be the clearest sign yet that Musk considers the agency a key priority. He is one of nine members of the Department of Government Efficiency who have arrived there in recent days, my colleagues wrote. Two others work at Gracias’ investment firm.
We don’t know exactly what Gracias’ role is. But a court filing last week offered one glimpse of DOGE’s early activities in the agency. In the filing, which The Washington Post covered in detail, Tiffany Flick, a career agency official who retired in mid-February, said the group’s representatives appeared to be seeking sensitive information and data that fell into three categories: allegations about benefits being paid out to deceased people; concerns about multiple benefits going to a single Social Security number; and payments going to people without a Social Security number.
Flick said all of those concerns were “invalid.” But they do align with the false allegations about fraud that Musk and President Trump have been making in public — which Democrats say Republicans intend to use as a pretense for scrutiny and cuts.
Trump and his allies have repeatedly denied that they have plans to cut Social Security benefits, which Republicans have long avoided doing for fear of political blowback.
“They’re not going to cut Social Security. They’re not going to cut Medicare. They’re not — that’s just fearmongering from the left,” said Chris LaCivita, one of Trump’s 2024 campaign managers, in an interview with Politico published this morning.
LaCivita didn’t claim that Musk wasn’t interested in cuts to those programs. Instead, he argued that Musk wasn’t as influential as Democrats have suggested.
“He’s not president, he’s not president” LaCivita said, referring to Musk. “He doesn’t get to make those decisions.”