Elon Musk's social insecurity

The billionaire's reckless claims seem intended to manufacture outrage to justify an end to what he refers to as an “entitlement program.”

By Barbara McQuade

Ronald Reagan called Social Security “a secure and stable base so that older Americans may live in dignity.”

Elon Musk calls it a “Ponzi scheme.”

Though there is a pyramid aspect to the Social Security program, it is hardly a fraud scheme. As I learned when I received my first paycheck as a teenager, Americans pay into the system with a portion of their income throughout their entire working lives. Their withholdings fund the benefits for current retirees, who are aging and no longer earning an income. And when today’s wage earners retire, they will take their turn collecting benefits, paid by the next generations of workers.

Concerns about the ability of the program as currently funded to maintain payouts as life expectancies increase are legitimate, but Musk has been disparaging the program itself, often with wild, unsupported claims. Last week, in an appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast, Musk stated, without evidence, that he and members of the Department of Government Efficiency have found “20 million dead people marked as alive.” He did not say how he knew that the people who were “marked as alive” were, in fact, dead. Last month, he claimed that “tens of millions” of dead people were receiving Social Security payments.

I know from my work as a former U.S. attorney that Social Security fraud exists, but not in the kinds of numbers Musk describes. The Social Security Administration has investigators who identify suspicious claims for beneficiary payments. Individuals who collect benefits to which they are not entitled are required to repay the money--with interest. In cases involving large sums of money or sophisticated efforts to conceal the unlawful payouts, they also might be charged with crimes. In other words, huge numbers of people aren’t cashing grandma’s Social Security checks years after her death without detection. According to a 2024 audit, fraudulent benefits account for less than 1 percent of the agency’s payouts.

But Musk is giving the public the impression that the agency is the source of massive fraud at the same time that he is telling its employees to expect a “significant workforce reduction.” Of course, if you really cared about reducing fraud, you would not cut personnel with a blunt instrument, a move that would risk reducing the number of fraud investigators.

In the latest instance of differences of opinion between Musk and President Donald Trump, the White House on Tuesday issued a statement pledging not to cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits.

For a billionaire like Musk, perhaps the virtues of the Social Security program are not apparent. Efforts to privatize the system pop up from time to time. Some argue that Americans could just as easily pay into their own 401(k) accounts for retirement savings and choose for themselves how to invest their money. But for workers with lower incomes and low risk tolerance or who lack the means to invest money in their own private retirement account, the Social Security program remains the safety net it was designed to be in 1935. Created amid the Great Depression, the Social Security system protects Americans from financial hardship when they are no longer able to work, either because of age or disability. According to a Senior Citizens League survey, two-thirds of older Americans rely on Social Security benefits for at least half their income, and 27 percent report that benefits are their sole source of income. Without Social Security, many retirees would spend their golden years in poverty.

That’s not to say there is no room for improvement. DOGE—the Department of Government Efficiency—is the new name for U.S. Digital Services, an agency set up during the Obama administration to improve the government’s digital technology following the ill-fated launch of the website for the Affordable Care Act. No doubt, the Social Security Administration could benefit from improved technology, perhaps it even could use artificial intelligence to flag suspicious claims. One of the flaws detected in last year’s audit was “insufficient controls in SSA’s automated and manual processes.” Fraud recovery is less burdensome when fewer fraudulent payments are made in the first place.

But Musk’s reckless claims seem intended to manufacture outrage to justify an end to what he refers to as an “entitlement program.” Perhaps he needs to be reminded of what Reagan said in that regard: “It’s not unreasonable for people who paid into a system for decades to expect to get their money's worth—that's not an ‘entitlement,’ that's honoring a deal.”

Barbara McQuade is a professor from practice at the University of Michigan Law School, former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, and author of the New York Times bestseller Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America.